New research released by car manufacturer Vauxhall today (15 August) has indicated that 71.6% of UK councils have no published strategy for residential on-street EV charging.
This is a major issue within the UK motor industry and could be detrimental to the adoption of EVs. By having no strategy, this leaves millions of potential EV drivers with no place to charge their vehicles.
More staggering is that from the research, which has been gathered via a Freedom of Information application, is that 69% of local authorities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are yet to install any on-street chargers. This has led to 80% of all EV charging in the UK being done at home, Vauxhall said.
The result has been growing disparity in the accessibility of affordable EV chargers – hindering progress of a just transition. For instance, many people must pay a premium to have access to a driveway and install an EV charger at home. Because of this, a large percentage of potential EV adopters are being subjected to public charging tariffs, which are often more expensive than home charging tariffs.
Add to this that approximately 40% of UK households do not have a driveway or access to off-street parking, a figure that rises to 60% in urban areas, the scale of the issue at hand is a dilemma for the UK’s EV growth prospects.
London, for instance, is predicted to have 19,105 on-street EV chargers online within the next year – more than double the number of on-street chargers across the rest of the UK combined, Vauxhall said.
289 of the councils that provided data up to 1 July stated that 14,188 new chargepoints are set to come online within the next year – significantly behind the required run rate to hit the UK Government’s 300,000 chargers by 2030 target.
It is also worth noting that the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) released figures last week on the growth of the EV sector stating that July 2023 was the “best month for EV registrations since 2020”. But with the rollout of on-street charging lagging behind EV registrations, this could cause significant problems for the industry in the coming years.
James Taylor, managing director at Vauxhall, said: “Accessibility to chargepoints near your home is critical to the transition to electric vehicle ownership in the UK. We want to galvanise the needs and interests of everyone, from the public to the councils and the charging operators to make sure that anyone without a driveway is part of that journey.
“We want to help educate and inform the decision-makers, and enable the installation of more chargers, more quickly.”
Current± publisher Solar Media is hosting its EV World Congress event in London this 10-11 October. The conference will focus on some of the key discussion points from across the EV sector including delivering coherent EV charging strategies, whether the UK is on course for its 2030 charging target, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology and more. More information, including how to attend, can be read here.
