Auto-Biography: Championing the motorist with Edmund King OBE

In the third interview of the series, Toby Richards-Carpenter speaks with Edmund King OBE, the President of The Automobile Association. It is fair to say that what Edmund doesn’t know about the Automotive sector probably isn’t worth knowing. From a childhood friendship with legendary Lotus founder Colin Chapman, to a stint in Whitehall, to running a car rental business in California, to becoming President of the AA, Edmund has done it all, capping his incredible career with an OBE for services to road safety in 2016. In this article, he lends us his valuable perspective on the past, present and future of Automotive.

1. How did you get into what you do?

The background to what I do goes back a long time. When I was 6 or 7 years old, I lived in Norwich and our house was next door but one to Colin Chapman. I used to hang out with his daughters and his son Clive and I fell in love with Lotus cars. Colin flew me to my first Grand Prix, where I met Graham Hill and Emerson Fittipaldi, and from a young age these formative experiences gave me a passion for all things automotive. I found the sound, the smell and the designs all fascinating.

Also as a kid, I loved the radio. I used to listen to Jimmy Young on Radio 1 under the kitchen table – it was somewhat ironic that, forty-odd years later, I would become close to Jimmy Young and he would interview me on Radio 2. So, automobiles and communication were important to me.

A third element was introduced when I studied politics at university – I love politics, the psychology of it, what makes people think.

All three of these things are reflected in what I do now with the AA. I took a long path to get here – I worked for the civil service and ran Hackney job centre in the ‘80s when Hackney was London’s poorest borough. And I understood the media from an early age; I knew that, in order to get attention, it was necessary to do something – for example, I got a fire-eater to turn up outside the job centre to promote roles in the fire service.

I also lived for a time in California, where I ran a car rental business called Marathon. Really it was a bit of a rent-a-wreck, but we kept it going because our customer service was so good that customers would come back even though they knew they could go down the road and hire a brand new car for two dollars a day more or whatever. And I learned a lot about cars in the process – how they break down, how to keep them going. Then I came back to the UK to get a proper job – by combining my interests in communication and transport, I got a job for the British Road Federation, the campaign lobby group for better road infrastructure.

From that job I was headhunted by various motoring organisations, then 15 years ago I joined AA as President, heading up all public affairs, campaigning, communications and crisis management and so on. If you look back on my various passions I am in the perfect job as it brings all those things together. I am very lucky.

2. What do you know now that you wish you had known at the outset of your career?

My advice to other people at the beginning of their career would be, don’t worry too much about the future, things will happen. When I graduated from Newcastle University there was high unemployment and it took a while to get a job. In life you can’t always plan your career. Things happen and you have to take the chances you’re given – you have to be good at what you do.

So in my case, with the car rental business in the US, I had to make the most of it and did so by being kind to customers. Eventually the fleet grew from 13 cars to 250 cars. I never had a career path mapped out which could have foreseen that I would get into the PR Week ‘Hall of Fame’ given I have never studied public relations in my life! My view is don’t worry too about the future but make sure you control the bits you can control effectively.

3. What legal issues do you encounter in the course of your work?

Obviously across the AA – which includes driving schools, servicing maintenance and repair, and working with insurance companies which offer motor legal assistance – there are lots of contracts and so on. I don’t deal directly with these but I do work closely with our investor relations team which deals with legal issues. With any big company, on the PR side you must work closely with the legal team and investor relations and it is very important those people have access to the board.

In terms of my precise work, you know you’re successful if you avoid legal issues. There are occasions when you might want to use a legal team to put pressure on the media if they publish something damaging to the brand but this is rare.

4. Where do you think the UK automotive industry is heading in the future?

I think the future is fascinating and we will see more change in the next 10 years than we have in the past 50. Over the last half-century, fundamentally cars have remained the same. This is now radically changing with electrification and connected and autonomous vehicles. Is it for the better? Ten years ago, would have said no, as early electric cars were not great. But now we have some amazing cars, like the Porsche Taycan, which is one of the best cars to drive full stop.

That has excited me, and we shouldn’t forget why we’re doing it. Ultimately the goal is to improve air quality and to address the climate change crisis. This might sound artificial and a long way off, but don’t forget what it was like in central London only 15 years ago – you would get home with soot in your nose! Now you can smell the difference in air quality, which is vital for people’s health. So, although I am optimistic, there is still a long way to go – EVs still only make up 18% of new car sales and around 2-3% of cars on the road.

These changes of course affect the AA. All our patrols are now trained on electric vehicles. However, when we speak to AA members, they are hesitant about transitioning to EVs – not hostile, but hesitant, mainly due to range anxiety and the availability of charging points. What is interesting is that, if you take a sample 10,000 EV breakdowns overall, only 2.3% are out of charge or low on charge. The main causes of breakdown for EVs are punctures and 12-volt batteries – exactly the same as with internal combustion engine cars.

We are also doing a lot of work at the AA on connected car services, particularly around predicting (and thus preventing) breakdowns. With the right connectivity we will know if your car needs oil or some other attention before you do as the owner. We are developing the service, trialling it with a dongle and investing a lot in the tech as we see it as the future.

For autonomous vehicles, the AV Bill sets out a legal framework based on recommendations from the law commission, who looked into it over three years. People might think the cars are a long way off, but in San Francisco and Nevada they already have autonomous taxis running around.

Edmund King is President of the Automobile Association and Director of the AA Charitable Trust for Road Safety and the Environment. He has written several reports on transport and often appears as a transport commentator on radio, television, and podcasts. He was awarded an OBE for ‘services to road safety’ in 2016. In 2020 he was inducted into the PRWeek ‘Hall of Fame’ and with his team won the PRWeek Best Public Affairs Campaign and PRCA Best Automotive Campaign for their work on ‘smart’ motorways. He is a keen advocate of all forms of mobility and often talks about cars, vans, cycles and electric vehicles.

You can find out more about Toby’s legal expertise on our website. If you need advice or assistance in relation to your business or any of the legal issues mentioned in this article, please feel free to contact Toby who would be delighted to hear from you directly or alternatively, visit our Automotive homepage.