Is the UK electric vehicle charging infrastructure on track?
The volume of electric vehicles (EVs) in the UK is continuing to grow, with March seeing nearly 70,000 new EVs taking to the roads. In fact, right now there are almost 1.5 million EVs in the UK car parc, representing around 5% of all cars in the UK.
This growth is set to continue as we head towards the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. But, with this growth comes growing demand for public EV charging. So is the UK’s charging infrastructure keeping up?
Infrastructure is charging forward
The good news is that the volume of EV chargers in the UK has risen dramatically. At the end of 2021 there were just under 30,000 EV chargers across the UK. As of March 2025, there are almost 77,000 [1] publicly available chargers in the UK, over double the volume in just over three years.
And this pace is not letting up, with the volume of chargers growing by 29% since March 2024.
This growth rate puts us on track to hit the government’s target of 300,000 public EV chargers by 2030.
So, there is positive growth and it seems that, for the current cohort of EV drivers, there are enough chargers for them to charge on the go, particularly when you consider that there are 8,353 petrol stations in the UK to serve the over 32 million internal combustion engine cars on the road today.
But let’s dig a little deeper.
Rapid and ultra-rapid chargers needed across the UK
When looking at charging, it’s critical to analyse the volume of chargers by their charging speed i.e. whether they are slow, fast, rapid or ultra-rapid.
Here we see that most charge points are 7kW or under, with over 43,000 of these chargers currently installed in the UK. These chargers are only suitable as destination chargers, where people are likely to spend several hours such as shopping centres, taking several hours to charge a car so, whilst there is clearly a use, they are not designed for top up charges on the go.
For these charges you need a fast or ideally rapid or ultra-rapid charger:
- Fast chargers between 7kW-50kW
- rapid offering 50kW-150kW
- ultra-rapid offering 150kW+ of charge
Currently, there are over 15,000 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers in the UK, with the slowest of these (50kW chargers) adding 100 miles of range in just 35 minutes.
As the speed at which EVs are capable of charging increases, so too must the volume of these rapid chargers. Crucially we need to see such chargers across all of the UK, with the South East currently having the highest volume of rapid and ultra-rapid charge points with 2,275 points and the North East having just 552 available rapid and ultra-rapid points.
Challenges remain, but progress is good
As well as accelerating deployment, work is needed on ensuring chargers are operational and affordable.
Current estimates [2] suggest that 30% of UK chargers are out of service. This significant proportion of non-functional chargers risk denting consumer confidence in charging infrastructure and more broadly in EVs. Focus is needed on maintenance to reduce this failure rate and we are already seeing action from industry and government to address this issue, with regulations in place stipulating uptime requirements for EV chargers.
The cost of charging also needs addressing by industry and government. One of the key selling points for EV ownership is the lower cost of ownership as a result of not having to pay for expensive petrol and diesel. This holds true for those EV owners with access to a home charger who may only need to top up from the public infrastructure on the odd occasion.
However, those who utilise public charging frequently or have no other option i.e. have no access to home charging, will find that the cost savings are significantly lower than those owners with a home charger and, in some instances, more expensive than fuelling a petrol or diesel vehicle.
We believe that charging should be affordable and fair for all and are calling on government to equalise VAT across public and private charging and to support charge point operators to reduce charging costs.
Whilst there are still challenges, the rate of deployment is rapidly accelerating and is currently meeting the needs of current EV owners. Ensuring that charging is affordable and accessible to all will be the key to ensuring that the infrastructure network is futureproofed and able to serve the rapidly growing pool of EV owners.
Sources
Zapmap data
Why are so many electric vehicle chargers broken? The Eco Experts, Dec 2024