The UK installed a record number of public electric car chargers in 2024, although the rate of growth slowed as installers contended with delays to government funding.
Numbers rose by more than a third to reach 73,421 by 20 December, according to Zapmap, whose data the government uses. The increase of 19,600 was nearly equivalent to the total number of chargers at the end of 2020.
Charger companies are racing to install points to serve the more than 1m electric cars on British roads. Demand is expected to rise steeply as rules force manufacturers to sell more electric cars every year.
The National Audit Office said this month that the number of public charge points was on track to meet a target of 300,000 by 2030but it flagged concerns about their concentration in urban areas.
The industry is also contending with slower growth than expected in demand for battery cars, even though nearly one in five new cars sold in Britain this year is powered by electricity. The number of chargers increased by 36% in the year to 20 December, Zapmap said, compared with 45% in 2023.
Several people in the charger industry said delays to the government’s local electric vehicle infrastructure (Levi) fund were hampering their efforts to keep up the pace of charger installations.
Vicky Read, the chief executive of Charge UK, a lobby group, said 2024 would go down as a boom year, but with a “slight tail-off towards the end”.
She said the slow rollout of Levi funding was contributing to the slowdown, as well as hesitation from charge point operators and investors worried about the expected relaxation of the UK’s electric car quotas. The relaxation of the quotas, known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, would be welcomed by many petrol and diesel carmakers, but the charger industry is concerned it could imperil billions of pounds of its investments because it would mean fewer electric cars on the roads.
Read said she still expected another record for public charger installations in 2025.
Robin Heap, the chief executive of the charge point company Zest, said pressure on local authorities was delaying installations in some places, with wide variations in capabilities between different areas.
Londoners are still by far the best served in Britain. Government analysis of Zapmap data to July showed the capital has 234 public chargers for each 100,000 people. Scotland is the only region outside London with more than 100 chargers for each 100,000, while Northern Ireland has by far the worst provision, at only 32.
“They’re all struggling to make ends meet, and the government is saying you need to install a lot of charger infrastructure,” said Heap. “I think that we are not as far progressed as we need to be,” he said.
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Heap noted with exasperation that some local authorities are not very experienced in planning permission. In one case a charger was turned down because of a council policy not to allow development to affect parking spaces, even though installing a charger would leave the space free. Heap said others worried about the possibility of cars queueing on the road for a space – an unlikely prospect for chargers that are meant to be left plugged in overnight.
Melanie Shufflebotham, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Zapmap, said that growth in rapid chargers – generally used for quick top-ups – was outpacing growth in electric car sales.
Quick Guide
Electric vehicle charging speeds
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Not all chargers are created equal
More and more people are buying electric cars, and are having to grapple with charging for the first time. However, not all chargers are created equal, and the profusion of units can cause confusion.
Charging speeds are measured by power output in kilowatts (kW), while battery capacity is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh). For example, a Nissan Leaf has 39kWh of battery capacity, while a Tesla Model Y has 60kWh.
Recharge times vary depending on battery size: divide the battery size by the power to get a very rough idea of how many hours it will take to charge. (E.g., a 60kWh battery at a 22kW charger would take about three hours.) The quicker the charge, the more it tends to cost.
Slow: up to 8kW
Common at homes, on-street chargers and places cars hang around like car parks or hotels. Suitable for charging overnight. Plugging in with a UK three-pin plug to the mains at home will deliver about 2.3kW – although it is not recommended.
Fast: 8kW to 49kW
Found at urban sites like supermarkets, shopping centres or car parks. Capable of charging a smaller battery in a few hours.
Rapid: 50kW to 150kW
Typically found close to big roads for journey charging, but also increasingly found in locations such as supermarkets or gyms with short dwell times. 50kW could give 80% charge in less than an hour.
Ultra-rapid: 150kW and above
Most chargers being installed at motorway services or dedicated charging hubs are now at least 150kW. Many newer cars can now handle 150kW, and several can charge at speeds of over 300kW, adding hundreds of miles of range in around 10 minutes.
Of the 12 regions in the UK, only Northern Ireland, Wales and the north-east of England have fewer than 1,000 high-speed chargers.
“The ultra-rapid 150kW+ chargers used by EV drivers on longer journeys have seen particularly high growth, with 80% more available than at the end of 2023,” Shufflebotham said. “It’s when you get to the on-street, it’s very patchy across the country.”
Shufflebotham said she expects the pace of installations to pick up towards the end of 2025 as the Levi funding feeds through.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said “we’re making good progress in rolling out charge points across the UK” and that measures to support the switch to electric cars were working.