Let’s face it petrolheads, one of your reasons for not joining the move to electric vehicles is your range anxiety; the risk of your vehicle running out of charge and the need to find somewhere convenient to re-charge it. Planning your longer journeys around the location of charge points is quite a change from the splash and dash fill-ups at traditional petrol stations.
The position is, though, changing rapidly as automotive technology improves and the charging network expands in support of the move to a net-zero future with the combined convenience of more charge points with faster charging capacity. Government consultation on views for delivering the commitment to end the sale of new cars powered solely by petrol or diesel engines in support of the UK’s transition to zero-emission vehicles ends on 18 February 2025. At some point in the relatively near future, possibly as early as 2030, the sale of new petrol or diesel cars and vans will cease and from 2035 all new vehicles are expected to be zero-emission so an increased demand for electric vehicles and their charging infrastructure is inevitable.
As battery technology and charging speeds improve, dwell times (i.e. the time spent with your vehicle plugged into the charging network) will reduce, however the occasional need to break your journey and use the commercial public charging network is going to become ever more commonplace. There are currently around 34 million cars registered in the UK and of those, approximately 2 million are either electric or plug-in hybrid electric.
In 2024 new car registrations totalled 1.95 million with plug-in vehicles accounting for around 28% with the percentage steadily growing year on year. It’s estimated that at the end of December 2024 there were approximately 74,000 electric vehicle charging points across the UK covering over 37,000 charging locations with just shy of 20,000 having been added in 2024. In addition there is a growing private network of home and workplace charging whilst at the same time the electricity generation powering the network in the UK gets ever greener as we move towards more renewable generation – our recent feature on rooftop solar projects also set out the benefits of localised electricity generation and uses for surplus supply.
With ultra-fast charge points now running at up to 350kW, bearing in mind the average domestic sockets offer little more than 3kW, additions to the network are dependent upon the availability of a suitable connection to the electricity grid. Installing the surface kit may need little more than a simple lease to a charging operator however for connectivity there may be more to consider such as cable easements often through third-party owned land or the installation of new substations. The disruption to the land also means that operators are seeking to future-proof their installations by allowing for even higher capacity connections to improve the speed, efficiency and number of charge points while new legal requirements on operators means drivers of electric vehicles are able to pay by contactless, compare charging prices and find nearby charge points via apps.
We are increasingly seeing operators seeking to extend their network into service station forecourts, retail parks, hotels and leisure facilities, each of which offers a distraction for the vehicle’s occupants during the dwell time, and a growing private network particularly amongst last-mile logistics providers with on-site charge points at their distribution hubs. Investigations into the legal route of bringing power from the nearest point of connection in the generation network to the point of delivery to the end-user can prove problematic however with the clock ticking on 2030 the need to act has never been greater.
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