The UK has surpassed 50,000 electric vehicle (EV) charge points with the 50,000th charging device installed by MFG EV Power at a service station in Western-super-Mare.
October’s 50,000 charge point milestone comes after the 40,000 milestone was achieved in February with the addition of at GeniePoint charger at Morrisons SOuthport.
Looking back further, the UK hit 30,000 charging devices in February 2022, with a BP Pulse device installed in Botany Bay in Kent. It followed the 20,000th charger being deployed in September 2020; a Pod Point charger at a Tesco in Scarborough.
The 10,000th charging device milestone came in August 2018, with the installation of an InstaVolt device at Meadowfield Filling Station.
Last week, Zapmap’s quarterly statistics showed that the number of ultra-rapid charge points in the UK increased by 68% since September 2022, with the number of slow chargers increasing by almost 68% as well.
Looking ahead, given the current rate of installation, Zapmap’s calculations show that the UK is likely to reach 100,000 charging devices in August 2025.
Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder and chief operating officer at Zapmap, said: “Hitting 50,000 public charging devices is a really important milestone for the country and illustrates the sea change behind the increased rate of charge point installations.
“Having passed 40,000 charge points in February, our predictions are that there will be 100,000 chargers by August 2025 – which would certainly be a major achievement.
“Alongside the number of high-power charging hubs in the UK more than doubling in the past year, as we saw last week, these are changes that bring real benefits to electric car drivers up and down the country.”
Ian Johnson, chair of ChargeUK, says that the rate of deployment is increasing all the time. “In the last 12 months alone, the public charge point network has increased by 43%,” he said.
“However, we can go further and faster with the right policies and help from government to remove barriers that constrain the roll-out.
“Public chargers are part of a wider picture. The way people charge their EV depends on their lifestyle, many people charge at home, others charge on their street, whilst many will either charge at destinations or en route on their journeys.
“Our members are focussed on ensuring drivers have access to the right charger in the right place.”
1 thought on “UK surpasses 50,000 electric vehicle charge points, with rapid growth predicted”
EVs are not green. Their manufacturing CO2 footprint is immense, not that this matters because CO2 is plant food. I would suggest that anybody interested should visit http://www.clintel.org to find out what nobody else tells you. This is a site set up by 1,600 scientists around the world, and very senior ones at that, so unlike the IPCC which is an administrative organisation based in Geneva with nary a scientist in sight.
As for these numbers, wow. 100,000 by 2025. Gosh, how wonderful. I live in a terraced house. Where is mine? No more than a 10 minute walk away, assuming it is not in use. Then that might stretch to 30, 30, 40 minutes. Just what we need in the 21st century.
Where is the power coming from? A 150 KW fast charger uses the same power as 11 terraced houses. How many of these things are going to be rolled out? Where is the power coming from? The grid will be unable to cope, so a major re-wire is in order. What will that cost and who is going to pay? Not the EVs, that is for sure. They pay no road fuel duty at all and Quentin Willson is bleating about removing VAT off charge points. What total nonsense.
Road fuel and the VAT thereon raises £60 billion a year. EVs contribute nothing, so that revenue will have to be made up somehow. Khan’s ULEZ nonsense is the precursor to something much more sinister. Pricing by the mile. This is the only way revenue can be raised. Real cars, which do pay by the mile, albeit at varying rates depending on the skill of the driver and thirst of the vehicle, will also get caught up in this madness because they are dirty (no they are not, the London Underground is 150 times worse than the streets) and pay road fuel duty AND by the mile.
This whole electric thing is utter nonsense, solving a non problem. JCB is looking at hydrogen ICE engines and Toyota is looking at ammonia, both of which emit nothing that is not already there. More to the point, the fuel can be taxed like it is now and dispensed from existing infrastructure. There is nothing quite so funny as seeing a queue of electric cars waiting for the chargers, knowing they will be there for another hour at least. Furthermore, charge points are not covered so they all get wet. Hysterical.