Britain hits milestone 50,000th public EV charging point installation – with six years left to meet 300,000 target

Britain now has more than 50,000 public charging points for electric vehicles (EV) for the first time, official figures used by the Government confirmed today.

Weston-super-Mare is where the “milestone” device was installed last month, according to the company that provides data on charging infrastructure to the Department for Transport.

Zapmap says the current trajectory should include the 100,000th charger for electric vehicles in the next two years. However, facilities will need to grow much faster to meet the ambitious targets set by ministers.

British drivers have been promised that there will be more than 300,000 public chargers across the country by 2030, leaving just over six years to add 250,000 more devices to the road network.

The 50,000th charging point is an ultra-fast MFG EV Power device installed at a service station near the southwestern coastal town in October.

The milestone comes eight months after the UK’s 40,000th public electric vehicle charger was added in February.

And the next milestone of 100,000 devices is expected to arrive in August 2025, according to Zapmap calculations.

Industry commentators say the rate of charging point deployment is increasing – the network has expanded by 43 per cent in the last 12 months.

However, reaching the goal of 100,000 devices by summer 2025 would require an average of 2,273 new devices installed in each of the 22 months to that date, while only 1,432 were added in September.

This means that current monthly installs must grow by 60 percent on average between now and August 2025.

Zapmap, which provides charging infrastructure figures to the DfT, estimates that the 100,000th public device will be installed by August 2025. However, to do so, monthly installations will need to grow by 60%.

Ministers had previously set an ambitious target of having 300,000 public chargers available across the UK by 2030. However, Rishi Sunak’s recent decision to delay the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars by five years to 2035 could bring about this change.

The report follows Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to delay the transition to electric vehicles by pushing back the deadline for banning sales of new petrol and diesel cars by five years, from 2030 to 2035.

It is unclear whether the postponement of this ban will affect the Government’s existing objectives to strengthen the country’s charging infrastructure.

Last year, the DfT announced it will spend £1.6bn to build a network of 300,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2030 as part of the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy.

If this objective is maintained, there are only 74 months left to add just over 250,000 devices to the network.

At the end of September, there were 49,882 electric vehicle charging points across the UK, according to Zapmap.

To add another 250,118 by the end of the decade, an average of 3,380 installations per month would be needed, a 136 percent increase over the volume of devices added to the network last month.

Despite this, Zapmap remains optimistic that the country is on track to offer enough public chargers to supply the growing number of EV drivers in Britain.

Last week, the company’s quarterly statistics showed that the number of fastest ‘ultra-fast’ charging points in the UK has increased by 68 per cent since September 2022, while the number of slow chargers has grown by almost the same amount. .

This is the breakdown of the different devices currently available on the public network. Ultra-fast devices are the fastest and can recharge a battery from 10 to 80% in less than half an hour.

Industry commentators believe the UK is on track to accelerate the number of public chargers available across the country, although they admit they are currently adding them in areas where there is greater demand based on the number of local owners.

Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder of Zapmap, said: “Reaching 50,000 public charging devices is a really important milestone for the country and illustrates the step change behind the increasing rate of charging point installations.”

“Having surpassed 40,000 charging points in February, our predictions are that there will be 100,000 chargers by August 2025, which would certainly be a significant achievement.

“As well as the number of high-power charging centers in the UK more than doubling in the last year, as we saw last week, these are changes that bring real benefits to electric car drivers across the country.” .

While more devices are being added, concerns remain about the uneven distribution of their availability.

A recent report from the County Councils Network found that electric vehicle owners in rural England have to drive thirteen times farther than drivers in London to reach a charging point.

He said rural counties have only one electric car charger for every ten miles of road, compared to one every three-quarters of a mile in the capital.

That said, those who live in the countryside are much more likely to be able to install a home charger on their property than those who live in flats and houses without street parking in the capital.

This means that those who live in rural areas depend much less on the public network.

Ian Johnson, chair of the ChargeUK campaign which is calling for more government support to accelerate charging infrastructure, says the rate of rollout is increasing all the time with a focus on areas of the country that need it most.

“In the last 12 months alone, the network of public charging points has increased by 43 percent,” he said.

‘However, we can go further and faster with the right policies and government help to remove barriers limiting deployment.

‘Public chargers are part of a bigger picture. How people charge their electric vehicles depends on their lifestyle: many people do it at home, others do it on the street, and many do it at the destination or along the way of their trips.

“Our members are focused on ensuring drivers have access to the right charger in the right location.”