Transport secretary Grant Shapps announced £20m fund for EV chargers
Investment is part of a government scheme for installation of kerbside devices
Some 40% of Britons do not have off-street parking, meaning more charge points need to be added to roads to enable drivers to switch to electric cars
Councils need to apply for fund, though reports say it is not being fully utilised
A new study says installations need to accelerate at five times the current rate if to supply enough chargers by 2030 when new petrol and diesels are banned
Think tank Policy Exchange urged the Government to avoid “charging blackspots” in small towns and rural areas.
It published a report saying that the UK will need 400,000 public chargepoints when the sale of new conventionally-fuelled cars and vans is set to be prohibited in 2030, up from 35,000 currently.
To reach this total, the annual rate at which new chargepoints are being installed must increase from around 7,000 over the past three years to 35,000 over the next decade.
Researchers recommended that the Government should issue contracts to private firms to install chargepoints in areas where they are sparse.
This would mark a switch from the existing policy of offering grants, and would be similar to offshore wind farm auctions.
Electric car chargers need to be rolled out five times quicker to support 2030 petrol ban
Think tank Policy Exchange said installations will need to accelerate from current levels of 7,000 a year to 35,000 over the next decade
2 February 2021 • 12:01am
Without intervention rural areas and small towns could become charging blackspots
Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
The rollout of electric car charge-points must become five times quicker before the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars comes into force, a report has warned.
The research by think tank Policy Exchange found that the nation will need 400,000 public chargers by 2030 and installations will need to accelerate from current levels of 7,000 a year to 35,000 annually over the next decade.