Electric car charging bays are falling victim to a regional divide with many areas behind London.
David Hall, VP of Power Systems UK&I at Schneider Electric, said work is going on to close the gap with providers now turning their attention to outside the capital.
However, he warned the rest of the country was “not there just yet” which could be a concern for new EV owners.
Department for Transport data provided by ZapMap revealed major discrepancies in regional EV charging numbers.
In October 2023, London had the highest number of devices with a whopping 193 devices for every 100,000 people.
This is much higher than the UK average where 73 charging plugs are in place per 100,000 population.
The North West has the lowest number of devices with only 42 devices for the same sample size.
Speaking to Express.co.uk, David explained: “I think there certainly has been this not so much North/South, just a London/rest of the country divide.
“When I look at the amount of chargers going in around the country, the growth outside of London is twice what we are seeing in London. The rest of the country, let’s call it, is catching up but it’s not there just yet.
“I think there’s been a lot of focus on the motorway networks and the ultra-fast chargers because that’s the backbone of transport.”
EV owners living in more regional areas are likely to have better access to off-street charging bays at home. However, DfT data reveals London has continued to see the largest growth in devices between July and September 2023.
Stunningly, the capital recorded a whopping 26.9 percent increase in plugs whilst the North East actually saw a decline of 7.3 percent.
Mr Hall called for local councils to do more to help address concerns about EV numbers in their towns and cities. He explained: “The other thing I think is if we are going to make this successful, I think it’s fine private companies like ourselves putting chargers on our sites, we see the need for that and we invest in it.
“But to get national coverage you need the council on board, the local authorities. They have lots of people coming into their towns or their cities. A lot of them are talking about how to decarbonise, well they decarbonise by stopping internal combustion engine vehicles coming into their city centres.
“They either put levies like they do in London or say, ‘Here’s a Park and Ride or a car park full of electric chargers’, and I don’t think we’ve seen enough of that yet.
“The charge point operators are saying we would do this for councils, we would take a piece of their land, build out an EV hub, run it, pay a fee to the council and they would get chargers quickly.
“I think that’s what needs to happen. Each of these council areas needs to partner with charge operators and say ‘roll this out for us’.”
