UK hits 75,000 milestone for public EV chargers

There are now more than 75,000 public electric car chargers in the UK, according to mapping service Zap-Map, which says February showed growth of 32 per cent year on year.

Zap-Map named the 75,000th charger as one of eight new units installed by Ionity at the Village Hotel in Bristol, including four ultra-rapid 350kW chargers, close to the M4, M5 and M32. It says the milestone “reflects the encouraging growth of the country’s chargepoint infrastructure”, pointing to strong growth in the ultra-rapid segment (chargers with an output of 150kW or more), which it reckons has seen installations ratcheting up by 84 per cent since the end of February last year. 

It’s not just higher-powered charger numbers increasing though, with Zap-Map suggesting that strong growth will continue this year across all types of public charger installation, including low-powered units.

“Looking forward, assuming that the ZEV mandate regulations are not watered down, it is expected that the EV infrastructure will continue to see strong growth,” the company says. “As projects funded by LEVI (the government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure fund) come to fruition, a high number of on-street chargers will be rolled out through the second half of the year, with numbers being further bolstered by investment from the private sector.”

While low-powered chargers remain big business for installers and appeal to local authorities looking to maximise their headline numbers of installations, they’re not universally favoured. BP Pulse is one chargepoint provider that has switched to a high-powered hub model, citing evolving consumer demand and concerns over the long-term business model for low-powered network operators. Meanwhile, the CEO of charging network Be.EV, Asif Ghafoor, has been scathing about the suitability of some of the existing low-powered chargers that make up a significant proportion of the UK’s 75,000-strong network. 

Responding to the latest Zap-Map figures, Ghafoor told Auto Express: “What’s been particularly encouraging has been the growth in rapid/ultra-rapid chargers. When we started the roll-out, there was far too much of an obsession with lamppost chargers,” he says. “They’re handy for people who need to charge overnight but they’re rubbish for everything else and there’s too many of them. Many of these chargers don’t have contactless payments and are installed with little thought for accessibility. Cheap lamppost chargers are not the best solution for everyone, and many will be nothing but street litter in a few years’ time, given how quickly batteries are improving.”

Vicky Read is CEO at ChargeUK, a trade organisation representing installers of all types of charge points, and is more upbeat about the UK’s latest charging milestone. “Reaching 75,000 public chargepoints is a significant milestone and an incredible achievement for an industry that is barely a decade old,” she said.

"We know a successful transition to EVs depends on world-class charging infrastructure being deployed ahead of demand. Today’s announcement is yet more proof that ChargeUK’s members are getting on with the job, with the public network having grown by 37 per cent in 2024.

"But now is not the time for complacency. Millions more EVs will be sold in the coming years, so we need to keep the momentum going with ChargeUK’s members having committed to invest £6 billion by 2030 to do just this.” Read suggests this requires a “strong and stable ZEV mandate”, and flagged the problems of different VAT rates payable on electricity used in domestic and public chargers, and the need to speed up off-grid connections.

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