EV charging ‘deserts’ a barrier to electric car adoption

Richard Aucock, Contributor
Tue, 03 Sept 2024

Three quarters of households that don’t have off-street parking also don’t have a public charger within a five-minute walk, new data has revealed.

Overall, 9.3 million of the 28.4 million households in the UK do not have off-street parking and, therefore, the ability to install a wall box charger at their house.

They are instead reliant on public chargers and analysis from Field Dynamics has exposed the serious flaws in the network.

While the overall number of public chargers is increasing rapidly, with 46% more being added in the previous year alone, large areas known as "charging deserts" are beginning to emerge, where motorists are inadequately served by the public network.

The worst offenders are north-east Derbyshire and Redditch, the analysis published in the Guardian has revealed. In north-east Derbyshire, the public charger network covers a paltry 1.3% of ‘on-street’ households. In Redditch, it is 3.2% – compared to 99% coverage in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea.

Overall, London has four times more chargers per household than the rest of the UK.

The gap between coverage in London and the rest of Great Britain is also growing – from a 32% difference in public chargepoint availability in 2020, to a 47% difference this year.

The data shows that in a whopping 38 local authorities across the UK, less than 10% of households have parking covered by the public charger network.

Field Dynamics MD Craig Stephenson said the large divide between those who can charge at home and those reliant on the public network chips away at the money-saving aspects of EVs, particularly if motorists have to rely on pricier rapid chargers further away from their home.

Ask HJ

Can we trust EV charging?

If EVs are going to become the norm, trustworthy chargers are required. Yesterday, I was charged for 17 Kwh of energy that was not transferred to my car. Monta took my money on behalf of Rolec, the owners of the charger. My BMW i3 didn’t register any charge, as confirmed by my BMW app. The Monta app showed the transfer of 17 Kwh. Is this an issue that you are aware of elsewhere within your regular followers? I’m now having to fight for a rebate.

We have not had any similar reports of electric vehicle owners experiencing this issue, although it is unlikely that this is the first occurrence. It is no doubt a frustrating situation and you should not have to fight for a refund. It is likely that the information passed between the charger, the owners of the charger and the app is incorrect, so although your app registered that the charge was delivered the charger itself should have the data to indicate that this was not the case.

Answered by David Ross

More Questions