UK EV charging network grows by 47 per cent this year

The Office of Zero Emissions Vehicles (OZEV) has released figures that show a 47 per cent increase in electric car charge points year-on-year, meaning there are now 96 EV chargers per 100,000 people here in the UK.

The total figure as of July 2024 is 64,632 chargers installed across the UK, according to OZEV’s data. However, the chargers are concentrated into certain areas of the country and it’s clear there are certain areas with not enough infrastructure yet.

Electric car owners in London benefit from 234 charge points per 100,000 people, more than double the national average. Compare that to Northern Ireland as an example of an underserved area: there, only 32 chargers per 100,000 people are installed.

It’s also clear that there’s divide along urban lines, as 85.1 per cent of chargers are installed in cities and towns, and just 7.5 per cent of charge points are in villages. Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West, the East Midlands, the North East and East of England, all have fewer than around 70 chargers per 100,000 people. Scotland has 103 chargers per 100,000 people, which is good but nowhere near English cities’ counts.

July’s figures from OZEV show that 48 per cent are ‘destination chargers’ - where you charge at a car park next to somewhere you want to be, like a pub or supermarket - and 37 per cent are ‘on street chargers’. A tiny 6 per cent are ‘en route’ chargers like those in motorway services.

Scotland has the fastest chargers on average, with 26.1 chargers of 50kW and above per 100,000 people. The London average is 13.7 50kW-plus charge points per 100,000, and Northern Ireland only has 7.9 of these faster chargers per 100,000. The national average is 18.5 per 100,000 people.

In May, the National Infrastructure Commission reported that the target of 300,000 public charge points by 2030 is still on track, but it’s not clear if the ‘charging deserts’ will remain.

Research by our parent company Carwow used figures from the DVLA and the Department for Transport to find the worst-affected regions with a lack of public charge points.

Bracknell Forest was found to be where there are the most plug-in vehicles per public charger (619). After that was East Dunbartonshire (525) and Windsor and Maidenhead (516). The research also found that Dundee City has just over 16 EVs and plug-in hybrids per public charger - a much more encouraging figure -  and the Highlands has just 17.5 plug-in cars per charger.