UK starting to catch up with EU leaders in EV charge points

Not before time, the UK is beating the EV charger drought that has made driving battery electric cars a thrill and then a nuisance for many longer-distance drivers.

Councils approved 120 new schemes costing nearly £700 million last year, boosting the number of charge points to 73,000 nationwide compared with 21,000 four years ago.

A third of all new cars sold last month were all-electric. Exciting? Up to a point. Quentin Willson of the FairCharge EV lobby group tells the Times the planning process for attaching new charge points to the grid is still “glacial”.

And the UK still lags most comparable European economies in terms of charge points per capita.

It’s ahead of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland but behind France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Norway and (the leader by far) the Netherlands.