Charging your EV will get even easier

Range anxiety is something all electric car owners have had to deal with but charging your EV will get easier in the future.

When the first mainstream electric vehicles started to arrive on the market most couldn’t travel very far before a recharge was needed, and it led to some drivers developing ‘range anxiety’. The concern over being stranded with a flat battery, in other words.

But as electric range has increased substantially compared to those early efforts, such worries are no longer really necessary but EV owners still want to know they can recharge their car’s battery quickly and easily. So it’s good news that the charging infrastructure is growing at a rapid pace, and will get even better in the years to come.

According to the government’s Office for Zero Emission Vehicles April 2021 saw 22,790 public chargers available to UK drivers, with more than 4000 of those being rapid chargers. That’s an increase of around 10% compared to the last three months of 2020, so the network really is growing at a useful rate. In fact, it’s the largest quarterly growth since 2015 and, on average, the number of chargers has been growing by 43% each year.

Just to add to the good news for those yet to make the switch to electric motoring, the government announced earlier this year that that £20m of funding would be available to boost the number of on-street charge points.

What’s more, a number of companies, such as bp pulse, are promising to accelerate the roll-out of ultra-rapid chargers capable of delivering 150kW for fast top-ups. And on top of that there’s the planned growth of rapid charging ‘hubs’ that will allow larger numbers of drivers to recharge their EVs at once. For example, what is promised to be Europe’s most powerful charging station will come into operation in Oxford later this year, providing 38 fast and ultra-rapid charging points.

There’s also been the news that Gridserve has taken over the Electric Highway, previously run by Ecotricity. They’ll not only be expanding and improving the motorway charging network – great for the high-mileage EV driver – but are aiming to roll-out a UK network of fifty charging hubs, with the first ten expected to come into operation by the end of this year.

And if you like to recharge your EV while you do your shopping things will be improving there, too, as the major supermarkets are planning to increase the number of chargers they provide. For example, Tesco currently have them at 400 stores but this will grow to 600.

We know the charging network isn’t perfect, and more needs to be done to serve those living in rural communities or that don’t have access to off-street parking at home, but it really is getting better all the time. And that means you’ll be able to enjoy electric motoring without the worry.