Rising total number of public chargers in the UK is rising fast however, that depends where you live!

Latest Department for Transport figures detail 19,487 public electric vehicle charging points in the UK as of 1 October – up 18% in the year.

Of these, 3,530 were rapid chargers and the figures also show the number of rapid charging devices has increased nearly ten-fold since 2015.

The total number of chargers also grew in Q3; with an extra 1,222 available in total, up 7% on the previous quarter. 324 of these were rapid devices.

But the DfT says there is uneven distribution of devices within the UK. Most of the provision has been led by private investment, with individual networks and other businesses (e.g. hotels) choosing where to install devices. Installations by local authorities are not being optimised; some have bid for UK government funding – via OLEV grants and some not.

Charlie Jardine, founder and CEO of EO Charging, welcomed the increase in chargers, saying: “We look forward to seeing this number grow as electric vehicles are set to be an essential part of how we ‘build back better’ from the Covid-19 pandemic. “Whilst increasing the availability of public charge points is an important step in overcoming the barriers to EV adoption, 59% of vehicles on roads are company vehicles so businesses must carefully consider installing their own EV charging infrastructure. We’ve seen much evidence of businesses leading the way on this in recent months, with significant demand from our customers transforming their fleets across the UK and Europe from diesel and petrol to electric.”

The RACs Rod Dennis said the overall picture was positive but added: “There’s still a way to go and the focus now needs to be on installing as many fast chargers as possible, given that less than a fifth of public chargers are rapid. While the speed of fully charging an electric car can’t compete with the five minutes or so it takes to fill up a petrol or diesel model, a greater number of faster charge points could help tempt more people to ‘go electric’ sooner.”

Pink Connect are committed to the Green Future electric cars usher in, so if you or your business would like to know more about installing fast chargers for your fleet or staff vehicles, or you would like to find out about installing a charger point at home, give our expert team a call on 0345 450 9393 or drop them an email to: ev@pinkconnect.com. We are here standing for a cleaner world for all.