The Government has announced a £1.6bn investment in public charging infrastructure, targeting 300,000 public electric vehicle charge points by 2030.
300,000 represents a significant increase over the 30,000 public chargers today but requires a significant acceleration in infrastructure buildout.
To assist with this, the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy will oversee the rollout of chargers and allocate spending. It aims to make the rollout equitable across the UK, so no regions suffer from low chargers per capita.
No matter where you live – be that a city centre or rural village, the north, south, east or west of the country – we’re powering up the switch to electric and ensuring no one gets left behind in the process.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps.
So what?
A lot is made of the state of the UK’s public charging infrastructure. The long and short of it is that depending on where you are in the country, public chargers are feast or famine, and those living near big cities tend to eat better.
The regional divide is well known, and no more damning statistic exists than London having more public chargers than 36 counties combined.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
The explosive growth of electric vehicles has led to a significant shortfall in public charging points. Data shows that EVs outnumber public chargers 22 to 1, and alarmingly, only 1 in 4 public chargers installed last year were rapids.
The Government’s £1.6bn investment will support the rollout of tens of thousands of public chargers, most of which will be the rapid variety.
Additionally, the Government has set a 99% reliability target for charge point operators, in a move that should increase consumer confidence.
Source: Gov.uk.
