Everything, everywhere, all at once. Well, in most places.
Charge point numbers by region 2019-2024
A lot of reports have made much of the fact that a few London boroughs have more chargers than several large metropolitan areas in the Midlands and the North. This makes great copy but overlooks that London has a lot more EVs than other cities, and very few driveways. In fact the chart above shows that public charge points are increasing steeply everywhere. Annual growth in chargepoint numbers in 2023 was 45%.
Certain commentators, trade bodies and the EU have become fixated on ubiquity in chargepoints - with the EU urging members to aim for around 1 chargers for every 10 BEVs and the SMMT demanding 1.2 million charge points by 2030. This is a convenient displacement activity if your members are warring over the pace of the transition and holding out for flying hydrogen pig-carriers, but omits that fact that Norway, which is the country expected to reach 100% BEV sales first, has only 1 charger for every 30 vehicles.
Aiming for a perfect ratio disregards local conditions, including the availability of home and workplace charging, the speed of chargers and the the types of battery electric vehicles which make up the “car parc”.
The UK’s public chargepoint network, which we expect to be 70-75,000 strong by January 2025, is supplemented by a private and semi-private network of well over 400,000 work and home chargers serving 1 million cars, compared with 34,000 petrol pumps serving more than 36 million cars. - in other words 15 times as many chargers as fuel pumps, serving less than 1/30th of the vehicles.
If the continued percentage growth rate is maintained - it has been since records began - the UK will comfortably reach the 2030 target, potentially even doing so by mid-2029.
Public charge points over time to end of 2024
There are nevertheless blackspots. A few local authorities are obviously lagging in the rollout of public charge points. The table below shows the 10 councils with the fewest public charge points per privately-kept battery electric vehicle (for which the location of the vehicle is known, unlike company-kept vehicles). Each council has a density of charge points which is less than 20% of the national average.
And the rollout of charge points at motorway service areas remains well behind schedule, exacerbated by limited grid capacity, delays to the launch of the Rapid Charging Fund, and a continuing monopoly agreement between one charge point operator and three of the largest service station operators, which is set to remain in place until November 2026, to the detriment of consumers. Whilst many service areas are now well-served, 49% of sites did not meet Government’s target of 6 ultra-rapid charge points by the end of 2023.
That’s why Government should take “backstop” powers to issue directions to lagging local authorities which are not providing sufficient public charge points, and should bring forward primary powers to statutorily override exclusivity arrangements obtained by some charge point operators, to allow other firms to develop public charge points at service areas, and stimulate price competition.