WOULD you trust self-driving cars with mucky frozen cameras? How do you lay power cables for a London population fleet of electric cars without roadworks disruption; won’t marital harmony be threatened by long drives sharing a car with nothing to do?

Delegates braced to be fed reams of dry facts got a lively and thought-provoking treat at the first Leasing Broker Federation Conference held at RSA House off The Strand in London.

The conference room itself was a historic link with mobility, the sloping auditorium floor of granite kerbs and paving preserved as part of an 18th Century street linking The Strand and Embankment, over which RSA House was built.

There were serious aspects, such as the latest Government assault on diesels in the previous day’s 2017 Autumn Budget; what happens to broking when cities ban cars; what are the new business opportunities; and what type of cars will be in demand?

And if a nation plugging in kettles after Coronation Street causes a huge power drain, what impact will a few million PHEVs have?

There were thousands of words spoken and those in the auditorium had paid to hear them, but here are some highlights after delegates were welcomed by the Leasing Broker Federation’s Ralph Morton and Nick Ratcliffe and with intervals for refreshments and great networking.

Analysing Chancellor Hammond’s Budget speech

• Nigel Morris, motor tax expert at MHA MacIntyre Hudson – the chartered accountant, tax and business advisory firm

Accountant Nigel Morris of MHA MacIntyre Hudson reflected on the Budget and the continuing “demonisation of diesel” going against the customary three years’ notice of fiscal changes.

He said: “HMRC’s problem is they have been so far behind the curve. When CO2 tax rates were brought in manufacturers worked so fast that government lost tax take.

“Two-and-a-half years ago they were going to end the diesel surcharge then they did a U-turn,” said, adding: “They need to engage with the marketplace and understand what’s going to happen.”

What will you be selling in the future?

• Matthias Wellers, managing director of powertrain specialists AVL

Matthias Wellers, MD of powertrain specialists AVL, spoke of the rapid changes in government policy, national power supply resources, and the challenge of fitting market changes to government plans.

He said that while diesel was the demon now, petrol would be next, with countries like China and Germany planning the ban sales of new cars with combustion engines in 2025 against the fact that it takes five to seven years to develop a new internal combustion engine and ten years to recoup the investment.

On powertrains he said battery life depended on its charging history and this would be critical to RVs when EVs were traded in after three years.

But there were some wry smiles when he turned to the ambitions for early introduction of autonomous cars, saying that while one didn’t talk to fellow passengers in buses and planes “in car sharing you have to talk…”

And the crunch came when he said: “Autonomous cars depend on cameras but what about snow, rain, dirt making the camera dirty? That doesn’t happen in sunny California where they do their testing!”

Tesseract, blockchain and mobility as a service – what role for brokers?

• Philipp Schartau, director, EY Strategy – Mobility Innovation & Growth

Philipp Schartau of EY – otherwise known as international accountants and professional services specialist Ernst & Young – began by addressing the issue of connected cars, pointing out that whereas OEMs knew nothing of what happened to their cars once sold the cars were now sending back data for predictive maintenance and this was also being used by insurers.

On electric cars he said the battery and charging solutions could be a valuable separate asset to the base vehicle.

With shared mobility and some cities wanting to ban all cars – like Oslo as soon as 2020 – there were moves to a new era of ride-sharing and new sectors of “people who want to own our journey” and brokers had to be ready to adapt to meet the changes.

Tesseract was one path with its own cryptocurrency with investors in shared cars, fractional ownership, to maximum use and benefit financially – taking advantage of the fact that the average car is only used 4% of the time – in what had to be a managed service.

Going green – how can you transition customers?

• Karl Anders, Nissan national EV fleet manager

Karl Anders of Nissan spoke of the growing confidence in and demand for electric vehicles, resulting in rising RVs, and the public reassurance gained from the fact that of 300,000 electric Leaf cars only six had needed battery replacement.

There were business arguments, such as a ten per cent reduction in carbon footprint equating to a ten per cent reduction in cost but also that while the indrastructure was developing it was important to “Just use it where it works”.

And when it came to the car market there were other less logical factors, such as fashion and passion for fun.

What will be the hot sectors in 2019?

• Felipe Munoz, marketing analyst, JATO Dynamics

JATO analyst Felipe Munoz displayed his wealth of knowledge on the fluctuations in global markets’ demands, with India’s growth pushing the UK down to sixth in world demand and petrol outselling diesel while the UK was No1 for AFV sales.

But right now the demand was for SUVs and premium SUVs at that, in the UK accounting for 32% of the market. This made new models such as Jaguar E-Pace and Volvo XC40 the next winners, together with the VW T-Roc in the compact sector, as SUVs moved to account for half the market.

And the next progession was demand for hybrid SUVs as the AFV market grew.

Inner cities: access all areas?

• Iain Macbeth, head of foresight, Transport for London

Iain Macbeth of Transport for London produced some staggering statistics for the raod, rail, river and Underground transport network of a capital with a population of 8.8m growing to 10m by 2030.

Most of the traffic was goods vehicles, taxis and public transport with very little private transport. But they were looking ahead, with autonomous vehicle trials, although providing the substantive power supply for rapid chargers posed problems in a medieval city.

But TfL was the largest landowner in London with much of the land near or over the biggest electrical supply network – the Underground.

On future transport he pointed out: “Now the OEMs are encroaching on traditional public transport” and said the capital was a prime site for Mobility as a service (MAAS) for car sharing on subscription.

Why the best finance deal is more important than the car

• Scott Gairns, managing director of digital journey analysts Sophus3

Why do more than 30 manufacturers use Sophus3 for website traffic tracking? Scott Gairns revealed just what it takes to sell a car and the importance of finance.

He said the average purchase process took four to six weeks with website browsing, only one in 2,000 requesting a test drive and only 11% of cars sold without finance and that finance meant that users could have a car for less than the cost of a mobile phone.

GDPR – what does it mean for you

• David Topping, cyber and information security expert and British Standards author

Cyber and information security expert David Topping brought up the fear factor on the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced next May with the potential for fines of millions of pounds for data insecurity and leaks on everything from emails and spreadsheets to clients financial records.

And he warned that deleting data effectively was not as simple as it appeared. “You can’t just use the delete key, you need hard deletion. Shredding doesn’t cut it – I can get a lot of data from a 3x3mm shard of disk!”

But he added: “GDPR is happening but it is not such a big deal” if companies already complied with the Data Protection Act.

And he reassured the brokers: “Once technology takes a hold it happens much faster than anyone ever expects. There is plenty of demand out there for your services, cars and vans.”

And networking over lunch