EV charger shortfall put in spotlight

Research reveals UK's piecemeal approach to on-street charging

More than two thirds of UK councils have yet to install any on-street EV chargers, with a little more than six years to go until the UK government's ban on the sale of new combustion-engined cars comes into effect.

An investigation conducted by Vauxhall found that 69% of councils have no on-street chargers, while 71.6% lack a published strategy for onstreet residential charging.

Of the councils that responded to the investigation, 45% said they had no plans to install residential on-street chargers this year.

Data published by ZapMap and the Department for Transport on 26 July revealed that, as of 1 July, just 34% of the UK's 44,020 public chargers were designated as on-street chargers.

The Energy Saving Trust estimates that 80% of electric car charging is done at home. However, roughly 40% of UK households don't have a driveway or access to dedicated off-street parking at which they could install a private charger, forcing the use of public chargers. The proportion of households without off-street parking rises to 60% in urban areas.