Ask any supporter of EVs about range anxiety – the fear of running out of battery while on the road – and many will insist it is a thing of the past. There are now charging stations across much of Europe, with coverage rapidly expanding.
That is true, up to a point. There were 59,590 public chargers across the UK at the end of March in 32,322 locations, according to data from Zapmap – 47pc more than just a year earlier.
Yet both the quality and density of this geographical coverage remains patchy, leaving chargers thinly spread in some areas and of varying quality.
For example, of the almost 60,000 public chargers in the UK, more than half – or about 35,000 – are the slowest type with less than eight kilowatts of capacity.
These are the kind typically installed in people’s homes for overnight use, taking around eight hours to fully charge a vehicle, according to Pod Point.
Only 4,667 chargers – or about 8pc of the total – are the “ultra-rapid” kind with capacity of 150 kilowatts or more, which can fully charge a vehicle in as little as 10 to 30 minutes.
In February, a House of Lords report also highlighted the mixed levels of coverage across parts of the country – with the ratio of charge points to cars worsening in every region between 2019 and 2022.
There were 81 cars to each charge point in London, compared to 138 cars to each charge point in the North West. In the South West, there were 165 cars to each charging station, while the North East was the best served with only 40 cars to each charge point.
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