SEPTEMBER 12, 2022
tags: Electric Cars
By Paul Homewood
Within the next 10 years, the ratio of electric vehicles will get worse rather than better, according to a new report released by GoCompare. The study also revealed the best and the worst places to own an EV in the next 10 years.
Experts believe that the number of electric cars will almost double in the near future, but the charging network will not be able to follow suit.
The news comes despite the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales looming ever closer.
Last year, there were 266 electric vehicles (EVs) to each public charger in the UK, but the insurance comparison site says this will rise to 527 cars per charger by 2031.
This means that charger availability will be almost half of what it was in 2021.
The main reason for this is the fact that the rate of new charger installations won’t be fast enough to keep up with the uptake of EVs over the next decade.
Despite more charger installations, the number of EVs purchased will outweigh the rate new charging units are fit.
The search for a charger could be particularly difficult in some parts of south England.
Luton, for example, will have only one charger available for every 10,956 cars – the worst projected ratio of EVs per rapid charger in the UK.
The problem is that companies are going to be reluctant to build excess charger capacity into the network in advance of fleet growth, and consequently lose money in the first few years.
A look at the M1 Services in our neck of the woods highlights the potential shortage of charging stations.
Wooley Edge Services are our nearest, just outside Wakefield. The Northbound side boasts the princely total of four chargers, two at 60KW and the other two at the pretty much useless 22 KW rating. Worse still they are a mishmash of different connectors:
Southbound is worse, with just two chargers.
The nearest services are 20 miles away or so.
Gridserve, who are one the leading operators of EV charging, are rolling out 20 new EV hubs this year, including Woolley Edge where there will be , I believe, six 350 KWh charge points on each side of the M1.
But even this is a paltry contribution, as each charge point would probably be able to process maybe 50 cars a day at best. Wooley Edge must see thousands of cars stopping off every day, the BP station there has the capacity to serve hundreds of cars every hour.
The vast majority of car drivers avoid motorway service petrol like the plague, because the prices are so high. But EV owners will have little choice, as they do not have the range needed to make the long trips without stopping to fill up.
The inevitable queues at motorway stops when we all have electric cars will be frightening.