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“The geographical concentration of public charge points also needs to be at the top of ChargeUK’s agenda.”


– or worse, early pandemic-style bust-ups over toilet roll, if increasingly mainstream EV drivers lack the keen patience of early adopters.


Then there is the issue of reliability. The AFP’s manifesto called for a charge point regulator to hold operators accountable for the reliability and pricing of their units. On 28 April, it got its wish with the launch of Charge UK, a new trade body representing 18 of the country’s largest operators working in partnership with the government. The AFP welcomed its inception: “It has appeared to us for some time that a much stronger sense of direction is needed than is currently being seen when it comes to charging,” said chair, Paul Hollick, “we have been arguing for the creation of a charging czar for some time and, if that isn’t going to happen, an industry body working alongside government is probably the next best solution. Without visibly viable public infrastructure in place, used EV buyers are being asked to take a chance on simply being able to charge their vehicles out on the road, which is simply unreasonable.”


On the face of it, this looks more promising than Westminster’s efforts, because the firms simultaneously pledged to invest more than £6billion in installing and operating EV charging infrastructure by the end of the decade. Collaboration between network operators has long been cited as critical to serious traction, and the body said it aimed to double the size of the charge point network in 2023. If that happens and momentum is sustained, it should get the figures on the right track, but this is more than just a numbers game. The organisation must prove its worth by ensuring that chargers actually work when you roll up.


The geographical concentration of public charge points also needs to be at the top of ChargeUK’s agenda. According to ZapMap figures, almost a third (31.6%) were in Greater London as of the end of April 2023, with 12.6% in Southeast England and 9.4% in Scotland. The dichotomy is that heavily populated metropolitan areas include a greater proportion of people without driveways, for whom a home charger is not possible. Average incomes tend to be higher in major cities, too, so a greater proportion of residents are likely able to afford newer cars, themselves more likely to be plug-ins. That makes the case for the capital but fails to explain why regions such as the West Midlands and the Northwest are not ranked higher on ZapMap’s list. The yin to the cities’ yang is that if access to chargers dries up in tandem with population density, it makes even those with long-range EVs and home chargers edgy ahead of a triple-digit


www.businesscar.co.uk | June 2023 | 25


trip into unchartered territory. Granted, the business case for a dozen ultra-fast chargers in a hamlet is slim, but some lateral thinking about the geographical spread of charge points is required if they are to effectively serve the public.


Scotland looks like a good model in this respect; third on ZapMap’s charge point concentration list, its population is around 10% of England’s, while Edinburgh has around 6.2% of London’s number of inhabitants. The devolved government has introduced permitted development rights for charging hubs and operates an interest- free used EV loan of up to £30,000 towards the purchase of a used electric car or van, or up to £5,000 for an electric motorcycle or moped. Westminster would do well to take a leaf (no pun intended) out of its book. Finally, there is the cost of charging, which varies enormously depending on the car and the type of charge point. Public charging is almost certain to cost significantly more than home and workplace equivalents, as all energy prices shot up after the Ukraine war began in February 2022. However, public chargers came under the spotlight in January this year, when the RAC said the cost of rapid charging had risen by 50% in eight months.


“It now costs an average of 70.32p per kilowatt hour to rapid charge on a pay-as- you-go basis, up from 44.55p (58%) last May


and from 63.29p (11%) last September,” said the organisation, “this is more than twice the cost of charging the same car at home… with the price of such a charge coming in at just £17.87 – despite the record-high domestic energy prices.”


Factor in the recent report from Which? that the UK’s fourth-largest charge point operator, GeniePoint, increased off-peak prices by 32%, The Telegraph’s story about a near 40% decrease in free public charge points – the kind typically offered by supermarkets – and the RAC’s May report that petrol prices fell below 145p per litre for the first time in 18 months (petrol still accounts for the lion’s share of new car sales at 42.6% year-to-date as of the end of April) and the cost case for public charging does not look great. Hope may be on the horizon later this year. The House of Commons Library’s May publication Gas and electricity prices under the Energy Price Guarantee and beyond forecast that the Energy Price Cap – around £2,500 in Great Britain at the time of writing – would “fall to well below the [current] level in the second half of 2023.” Yes, that refers to household rates, which do not directly correspond to the public network, but it seems unlikely that the government would issue such a harbinger if broader energy costs were not expected to fall.


The critical aspect – both in the coming months and longer term – will be if public charge point operators collectively reduce their prices as wholesale energy costs drop. If they do, they will carry favour with the public by distinguishing themselves from petrol station forecourts – which are often accused of failing to do the same when fuel prices soften – and represent better value and a more realistic proposition for electric car drivers.


50%


Public chargers came under the spotlight in


January this year, when the RAC said the cost of rapid charging had risen by 50% in eight months.


Below: According to ZapMap, almost a third of public charge points were in Greater London as of the end of April 2023.


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