EV Chargers - do we have enough?

The recent electric car sales boom is the result of growing consumer interest and falling battery costs - all of which has been spurred on by years of supportive government policy. But with another 300,000 electric cars set to hit the roads in 2022, are there enough charge points? It’s a question that every member of the team at New AutoMotive gets asked time and again - even by friends and family. 

Setting aside the 180,000+ charge points on people’s driveways, which is how the majority of EV drivers do charge their cars, the UK has 28,000 public charge points comprising over 5,000 rapid charge points. Our recent report State of the Switch found that electric car sales are growing faster than the number of public charge points. But the latest data shows the rate of public charge point installations is increasing, too, with an average of 25 new public charge points per day being installed across the UK. Following a dip in charger installations during the pandemic, they are now being installed at an increasing pace. 

That is the fastest growth in public EV charging ever recorded in the UK, and it is consistent with a trend that sees the rate of charger installations increasing more and more. And it is being driven in some particular hotspots, usually where local authorities are very active in this area and driving forward change. Coventry City Council, for example, have almost doubled the number of charge points from 260 to 485. The Council was one of the government’s pilot Go Ultra Low councils, and has a dedicated officer who works on charging infrastructure projects. 

One of the biggest issues for public charging is not just the volume of charge points, but the speed and location of the charge points. We recently heard of a 7 kW charger in a parking bay where parking for more than 30 minutes is prohibited - a useless bit of infrastructure borne of poor decision making. Local authorities need to play a role, but they urgently need access to support and advice. That’s why we’ve been developing a toolkit for local authorities and working on a new machine-led analysis of geospatial and satellite imagery data so that the right charge points can be put where they are needed. With data driven decisions and local government playing an active role, we can make sure that every charger that’s installed helps increase coverage and give more people the confidence to switch to an EV. 

If you’d like to explore the statistics on public charge point installations, do take a look at our GitHub repo here.