Government doubles EV charging investment

The government has announced it is doubling the investment for local authorities to install electric car charging points.

It has pledged an extra £2.5m, bringing the total investment to £5m. It’s expected to pay for an additional 1,000 electric car charging points.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said, ‘It’s fantastic that there are now more than 20,000 publicly accessible charge points and double the number of electric vehicle charge points than petrol stations, but we want to do much more.

‘It’s vital that electric vehicle drivers feel confident about the availability of charge points near their homes, and that charging an electric car is seen as easy as plugging in a smartphone.’

Sebastian Speight, managing director of infrastructure at Ingenious, said: ‘There is a justifiable concern about the drag on the adoption of electric vehicles in the UK due to the limits on the speed of rolling out the associated charging infrastructure.

‘There are currently a number of market participants developing and implementing strategies for rolling out charging infrastructure but there is also a reasonable degree of uncertainty about the future patterns of consumer behaviour which creates a level of risk in these business models which has a closer fit with strategic or venture capital rather than more traditional infrastructure capital.

‘These uncertainties are around the technology type (AC versus DC), charging location and fear of stranded assets and convergence of operating systems. A closer involvement from public stakeholders should enable greater visibility on these risks and increase the availability of private capital.’