Charging an EV without a home charger
Thursday 29th September 2022
With a home chargepoint installed, replenishing the battery on your electric car couldn’t be easier. Simply plug in the cable and then go and watch TV, or enjoy a good night’s sleep, before setting off again with plenty of range available for whatever comes up during the day.
The problem is that there are more than seven million people in the UK living in flats and maisonettes and about the same again living in terraced houses. In other words, most of us are likely to find that charging at home is a complete non-starter. So, what do we do? Do we give up on the idea of switching to a pure EV? Far from it.
1. Are there enough public chargepoints for everyone?
The obvious answer is to make use of the public charging infrastructure, but are there enough chargepoints for all the EV drivers on the road and is it practical to rely on charging up when out and about?
As of July 2022, Zap-Map shows that the UK now has over 20,000 charging locations, 33,000+ charging devices, and more than 54,000 connectors. The growth is so rapid that, by the time you read this article, the figures are likely to have changed many times over and they are only going in one direction.
To illustrate the point, the fossil fuel giant Shell are planning to have 100,000 charge points by 2030 and, in March 2022, BP announced a £1 billion investment in their UK EV charging infrastructure over 10 years.
To put these statistics into context, there are less than 8,500 petrol stations in the UK which, perhaps surprisingly, is a 36% drop since the year 2000.
2. Are public chargepoints fast enough for busy drivers?
The great advantage of having a charger at home is that you can plug it in when you get home at night and it’s all ready for you in the morning. On the other hand, public charging is a far more time sensitive affair and so it’s vital that there are enough high-speed chargers available at convenient locations. Currently, the EV chargepoint profile looks like this:
Device Type | Current total | % of chargpoints |
Slow (3-6kW) | 8,209 | 24.7% |
Fast (7-22kW) | 18,988 | 57.1% |
Rapid (25-99kW) | 4,245 | 12.8% |
Ultra-rapid (100kW+) | 1,839 | 5.5% |
Total | 33,281 |