Mythbusting the world of EVs: are there enough electric car chargers in the UK?

Myth: there aren't enough chargers

A new set of government figures for charger installations has arrived. They’ll soon be out of date, because contrary to popular myth, charger installation is proceeding at pace.

In April to July this year, the number of public charge points went up by 10 per cent. It’s about the same percentage for AC (7–22kW) as for rapid points. In the past year, the total rise has been 25 per cent. So the speed of rollout accelerated the last quarter.

Critically, in the past year, the total number of EVs on the road has risen by slightly less than 25 per cent. So public charger installation continues to outpace the number of EVs.

It feels a lot better even than that. Driving long distances in an EV is far easier than just two or three years ago. First, rapid charge points are much more reliable now, so the effective improvement is better than the statistics indicate. Also, because they’re now much closer together, you can make better use of your battery’s full capacity when doing a long journey.

Cities tend to have more public 7kW points per head of population, so people without a driveway can charge overnight. Rural areas need fewer as more people can park at their house and plug in. Rapid chargers are more evenly distributed: 10–15 devices per 100k population across all regions of England and Wales. Scotland (where people drive further) has 19 and Northern Ireland just three.