Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to increase the (a) availability and (b) reliability of electric car charging points.

Government and industry have supported the installation of over 25,000 publicly available charging devices including more than 4,700 rapid devices. On average, over 500 new chargers are being added to the UK’s road network each month. A recent study found that the UK now has more rapid chargers every 100 miles of key strategic road than any country in Europe. In November 2020, we announced we will invest £1.3 billion in accelerating the roll out of charging infrastructure over the next four years for rapid chargepoints and installing more on-street chargepoints near homes and workplaces to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car.

By 2023, we aim to have at least six high powered, open access chargepoints at motorway service areas in England, with some larger sites having ten to twelve. By 2030, we are planning for there to be around 2,500 high powered chargepoints across England’s motorways and major A roads, and, by 2035, we expect the number to increase to around 6,000. Government is working with the private sector to deliver this wherever possible.

For example, there are plans for further investment into the Electric Highway along the Strategic Road Network giving drivers more confidence when making longer journeys. GRIDSERVE are undertaking a programme of upgrades to the existing hardware, which will include the option to pay by contactless methods at the chargepoint and they are on track to complete upgrades to all existing 50kW chargers before the end of the year. Tesla also recently confirmed plans to open the Tesla Supercharger network up to vehicles from other manufacturers. The government has welcomed these developments.

For motorists who do not have access to off-street parking, the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities to provide public chargepoints for their residents without access to private parking. The ORCS has supported 49 different local authorities to install over 1,400 chargepoints. A further 88 local authorities have also been awarded grant funding, providing more than 3,200 on-street public chargepoints with their installations yet to be completed. This year, £20 million is available under ORCS to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit from the scheme. Government also committed at Spending Review the £90 million Local EV Infrastructure fund, to support the roll out of larger, on-street charging schemes and local rapid hubs in England.

In Spring 2021 we consulted to improve the consumer experience at public chargepoints. We included a section to improve the reliability across the charging network to ensure that consumers can rely on chargepoints wherever they are travelling in the UK. We will publish our government response in Autumn and lay legislation in early 2022.