Impressive growth in UK’s EV charging network

Company Fleet  Driver Guides  Electric Vehicles 

We thought we’d start off this year’s blog with a slice of promising news to offset the rubbish weather. At least, it’s good news if you’re currently leasing yourself an EV or thinking about leasing one for 2025. It revolves around the slightly boring but absolutely essential subject of infrastructure, and the news is that last year saw a record rate of chargepoint installation across the UK.

Zapmap, the UK’s leading charge point mapping service, has recently published new year-end figures for EV charge point installations in 2024.

The latest figures show another year of record growth in the number of charge points installed across the UK over the last 12 months. More than 20,000 new charge points were installed throughout 2024, bringing the total number across the country to 73,699 - an increase of 38% on the previous year. That equates to an average installation rate of around 1650 new charging points every month.

Growth was particularly strong in the ultra-rapid segment (150kW+), which saw an increase of 84% in installations since the end of 2023. There are now more than 7,000 150kW+ chargers available to EV drivers, with a total of more than 14,000 50kW+ chargers also installed across the UK.

The number of charging hubs is on the up

The number of charging hubs (classified as a site offering six or more chargers of at least 50kW) also increased over the last 12 months, rising from 264 at the end of 2023 to a new total of 537, an increase of 103%. These increasingly popular hubs are being rolled out at various Motorway Service Areas, retail parks, car parks and even farm shops.

Destination chargers - which enable EV drivers to charge while they stop, rather than stopping to charge – have also been boosted across the UK with around 12,000 additional chargers now available at destinations such as restaurants, hotels, retail car parks and leisure areas across the UK.

The increase in installations may have even prompted last month’s statement from the National Audit Office which said that the number of public charge points was on track to meet Government targets by 2030.

Of course, while the overall infrastructure growth is encouraging it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.

Charger growth unequal across the country

Zapmap’s latest statistics reveal growth across all charger types, from ultra-rapid hubs to the roll-out of on-street charging points, but they don’t hide the fact there are still regional inequalities yet to be fully addressed.

For example, the provision of on-street chargers for EV drivers without off-street parking has grown, 72% of these chargers are still concentrated in and around London. Other areas such as Coventry and Liverpool have also made great advances in local availability, but that local availability is still highly variable. Government-funded LEVI (Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) projects should see the geographic gaps begin to narrow but we’ll have to wait for the 2025 figures to see how effectively these projects begin to deliver the much-needed improvements.

The news also coincided with the annual statement from the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders confirming record sales of new all-electric cars in 2024 - in fact the UK was the leader in Europe for EV sales.

More than 380,000 new EVs were registered in the UK last year, a figure that represents more than 19% of all new car sales in 2024 and an increase of 39% over the previous year’s total. That means there are now more than 1.3million purely-electric cars on the UK’s roads. The continued growth of charging infrastructure has clearly helped convince many that switching to an EV is a viable option.

And the people who have switched don’t appear to be regretting the decision either.

Driver satisfaction survey

Zapmap also carries out an annual driver survey, the results of which were released last month. It revealed an average satisfaction rating of 87% for drivers of electric cars, with fewer than 3% saying they would return to a petrol or diesel car.

Granted, around 80% of EV drivers charge at home - using one of the more than 800,000 home chargers that have been installed over the years – but more than half of those drivers (51%) also use public chargers at least once per month, confirming the importance of a public network. Having said that, the survey also showed that 61% of respondents believe that the public charging infrastructure has improved over the past year. It confirms, for current EV drivers at least, that the benefits of the expanding network of charging points have already been noticed.

It's not that long ago that easy access to the charging network was a perfectly valid reason not to choose an EV. Unless you happen to reside in the remotest of remote wildernesses that is clearly no longer the case.

Which means 2025 may be the year to explore the possibility of adding to that total of 1.3m all-electric cars by leasing a brand-new electric car of your very own.

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