Lack of electric vehicle (EV) charging points is preventing more people from adopting EVs, according to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
Speaking at the Virtual Smart Transport Conference, Kwarteng said that EV infrastructure was an issue that “comes up all the time”.
He said: “Anecdotally, lots of people out there want to adopt electric vehicles. But one of the main things that is stopping people doing so is the lack of provision for charging points. And this is something which the Government is fully aware of.
“We have committed an extra £300 million on top of the initial £500 million to really kick-start the roll out of electric vehicle charging points. And this is critically important.”
There are currently more than 42,000 charging points, according to Zap-Map, and estimates vary as to how many will be required by the time the ban on the sale of new petrol diesel cars and vans is introduced in 2030 (with hybrids phased out by 2035).
Think-tank Policy Exchange believes 400,000 public chargers will be required by then but the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) puts it significantly higher at 2.3 million – equating to 700 charge points being installed daily to the end of the decade.
Much rests on the Government’s infrastructure strategy, due to be published this year, which will set out an action plan for the roll out of charging infrastructure to meet the 2030 ban.
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The new Fiat 500 is a superb all-electric city car, and one that should be at the top of your shortlist if you’re in the market for a stylish and immensely capable small EV. The 500 retains all of its familiar Italian flair, and is now even more appealing with updated on-board tech along with a practical real-world range that leaves close rivals lagging behind.
Verdict
Throw in the government’s plug-in car grant incentive and the new 500 offers tremendous value for money. It’s among the best small electric cars currently on sale, and one we can wholeheartedly recommend.
About the new Fiat 500
At first glance, you might think not much has changed with the new Fiat 500 compared to the previous model. Well, you’d only be half right, because although the famous Nuova 500 profile is still easily recognisable, the latest third-generation car has switched to all-electric power.
The new 500 is slightly longer, wider and taller than the previous model, which remains on sale in petrol/mild-hybrid form, and has been developed using an all-new platform, so there are no compromises on valuable interior space which is an issue that can sometimes occur with modified combustion-engined models.
There are arguably only two rivals that are in direct competition with the all-electric 500: the classy MINI Electric will tempt some, while the retro Honda e really stands out from the crowd with its funky styling. Other options that buyers might consider include the PSA Group’s Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e, although both perhaps lack the necessary kerb appeal to seal the deal, while the extra practicality of the Renault Zoe is still a compelling choice – even after eight years on sale.
Power for the 500 comes from either a 117bhp or a 94bhp motor, with the former using a 42kWh battery which Fiat calls ‘Long Range’ and the latter a 24kWh ‘City Range’ version. With a claimed maximum of 115 miles from a single charge, the City Range option is suitably named, and you probably won’t be relishing many longer journeys in the cheapest 500. But, upgrading to the bigger battery means you’ll benefit from up to 199 miles (WLTP rated) before you need to stop at a charging point.
Fiat 500 2021 (Image: fiat.co.uk)
Fiat offers three core equipment levels for the 500: Action, Passion and top-spec Icon, while a limited La Prima edition is also available. The entry Action specification is paired with the 94bhp motor, with all other trims are coupled with the 117bhp Long Range set-up.
Prices for the 500 start from around £20,500 and rise to over £27,000, after deducting the government plug-in car grant. There are Convertible versions to consider as well, although these command a premium of around £2,500 to £3,000.
Engines, performance and drive
The Fiat 500 was always a good city car, but it’s been made even better by the adoption of electric power. Key to this improvement is how well Fiat has engineered the 500 to make it such an effortless and uncomplicated car to drive – particularly at slower speeds. One-pedal driving is possible if you choose the right drive mode, helping to take some of the strain of navigating through busy urban streets, while the 500’s drivetrain is reassuringly smooth and quiet on the move.
Refinement is decent for such a small car, although we’d avoid the bigger 17-inch alloy wheels as they create too much fidgeting over the lumps and bumps of typical UK tarmac. The 500 has the ability to take on motorway driving without feeling overly strained, while the only real niggle is the light steering at speed and a slight deadzone through the centre which increases the inputs having to be made.
Fiat has made the on-board tech a real highlight, with the 500 being the first car in its class to feature Level 2 autonomous driving. This means the car is able to adjust acceleration and braking, while also ensuring it remains within the designated lane, although the driver has to be ready to resume control at any time.
Engines, 0-60 acceleration and top speed
The entry 94bhp 500 version achieves 0-62mph in 9.5 seconds, with a top speed of 84mph. It’s probably worth remembering that this is the ‘City Range’ option, so you probably won’t spend too much time exploring the top end of the speedo dial. Instead, it’s good to know that, with a healthy 220Nm of torque and the typical instant drive associated with all-electric cars, the base 500 is more than capable of keeping up with traffic in and around town.
Moving up to the 117bhp car brings a half-second advantage to 62mph and a 93mph maximum.
Range, charging and running costs
Fiat offers the 93bhp Action version as an entry point to the 500 range, although it comes with a smaller 24kWh ‘City Range’ battery and offers a claimed 115-mile range. You’re probably looking at nearer 100 miles in real world conditions, so you’ll have to work out if it suits your lifestyle, or whether you’d rather stump up an extra £3,500 for the more practical 117bhp mid-range Passion version with a 42kWh ‘Long Range’ set-up and up to 199 miles from a single charge.
During our own test with a Long Range car we saw an estimated 168-mile range from a full charge with the Normal driving mode engaged, however this figure climbed a little when switching to the more efficient Range mode and rose to over 180 miles using the Sherpa setting, which reduces the maximum available power and limits top speed to 50mph.
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The Government’s work to decarbonise transport is placing too much emphasis on the shift to electric vehicles without encouraging a shift to clean transport alternatives.
A new report from think tank The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) analyses the Committee on Climate Change’s sixth carbon budget and shows that, without additional measures being put in place, the current approaches to reaching net zero could lead to significantly more cars on the UK’s roads.
It predicts there will be a 28% increase in car ownership between 2021 and 2050, with 10 million more cars on the road by the mid-century.
At the same time, there will be an 11% rise in car traffic while even more land will be required for car parking.
It also warns that an approach that places too much emphasis on the shift to electric vehicles – without also providing sufficient support for alternatives including affordable public transport, walking and cycling – would also likely benefit wealthy people more.
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Several automobile manufacturers have made pledges in recent months to halt or drastically reduce producing cars with internal combustion engines between 2030 and 2035.
Fuel Included BMW i3 on static display (Image: T. Larkum)
The latest was Audi, a subsidiary of Germany’s Volkswagen, which pledged Tuesday to launch only fully electric vehicles from 2026 and halt manufacturing cars with internal combustion engines by 2033. Here’s a look at other major automakers who have already set a deadline for their model line-ups to go fully electric.
BMW
The German carmaker has increased its electric vehicle sales targets as stricter EU emission limits are pushing all manufacturers to make the shift.
Over the coming decade, BMW now wants to sell 10 million fully-electric vehicles, up from its previous target of four million.
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You can charge an electric car in the rain, but if yours breaks down you shouldn’t tow it yourself. Here’s what you need to know about living with an electric car
It’s easy to make assumptions or build up misconceptions about electric cars. Did you know, for example, that while electric vehicles (or EVs) are typically cheap to run, there are times when they’re more expensive than comparable diesel cars? If you’re a new electric car owner, or thinking of getting one, here’s our myth-busting guide to the realities of going electric.
According to figures from the Society of Motoring Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), published by EV charge point mapping app Zap Map, there are now more than 250,000 electric cars on our roads.
That figure is forecast to rise to more than 12m in just over eight years, after the sale of new petrol and diesel cars is banned in 2030. So even if you’re not an electric car owner now, there’s a good chance you will be in the future.
To help you know what to expect, we’ve busted a few common electric car myths.
1) You can charge an electric car when it’s raining
Whether you can charge an EV in the rain is a query we get asked at Which?, along with questions about whether you can drive through deep puddles in an electric car.
The answer to all such questions is yes. You can charge in the rain, you can take an electric car through a car wash and if you have to traverse a flooded road, you won’t be electrocuted (just make sure you adhere to the car’s wading depth – check your manual for details).
Meanwhile, the standards for electric car charge points say the points must have a minimum waterproofing rating of IP44, which means they should be protected from water splashes from any angle – more than sufficient for all rain conditions.
Some charging operators have gone beyond this minimum standard, which should lend even more assurance. For example, Osprey is rolling out new charge points that have a rating of IP65, which means the electrics will be protected against jets of water from all angles, as well as being completely dust-tight.
2) Rapid chargers are only rapid for a battery’s first 80% of capacity
Rapid car chargers are able to fill a battery to 80% very quickly, but if you want your battery to be fully charged, expect to wait a bit longer.
To help protect the car’s batteries, the car will manage the amount of charge coming in. The fuller the battery, the slower the car will charge from that point.
As an example, the Volkswagen ID.3 (2020-) has a maximum DC charge rate of 100kW. This graph shows how the power from a 100kW charger decreased as the battery filled (its ‘state of charge’), when we monitored this in our lab.
As you can see, the car charged at 100kW up to around 30%, when the power started decreasing, then dropped off more sharply when it reached 80%.
In the case above, we found it took just 35 minutes to charge the 58kWh battery in the ID.3 from 10-80%. But it then took an extra 24 minutes just to get the car from 80% to 100%.
Because of this drop-off, and because you’re very unlikely to ever reach a rapid charge point with no battery left at all, rapid charge times are typically given as how long it would take to charge your battery from 10% to 80%.
IONITY rapid charge points at Leeds Skelton Lake Services (Image: IONITY)
3) Some public electric car chargers can be more expensive than diesel
Another issue with rapid chargers is that they can be expensive. You’ll typically pay 35p per kWh to charge your car at a rapid charger, or more for ultra-rapid, compared with a typical electricity cost of 19.19p per kWh if you’re able to charge at home on a standard tariff.
We’ve compared the cost of fuelling large diesel and large electric cars, across all the models we’ve reviewed under our current test programme, taking into account their average fuel efficiency and the current cost of diesel.
We’ve calculated that if you’re paying more than 33p/kWh to recharge an electric car using a rapid or ultra-rapid charger, you’ll be financially worse off than you would be fuelling a medium diesel car (or full petrol hybrid) to drive an equivalent distance.
Find out more about when it will cost you more to charge an electric car than fill a diesel by going to our electric car costs guide.
4) Batteries require more energy to charge than they can hold
This may sound counterintuitive, but to give you an example, we’ve recently tested the Mercedes EQC (2019-), a super-sized SUV. It has an 80kWh battery, but to charge it from 0% to 100%, we used 93kWh.
This head-scratcher isn’t unique to the Mercedes – it applies to all rechargeable batteries. We refer to it as ‘loss of charge’.
In our tests, we wrap this tested loss of charge into our average fuel efficiency assessments to provide a more accurate electricity use figure.
We then turn these figures into charging costs; you’ll find them in the tech specs of all our car reviews online. We also provide costs for petrol, diesel and hybrid cars, allowing you to compare day-to-day running costs between different cars and fuel types.
5) The EV market has its own ‘gas guzzlers’
There is a big difference in how much energy different electric cars use to travel the same distance – there are efficient EVs and EV equivalents of ‘gas guzzlers’.
We’re used to this concept in petrol and diesel cars. As a rule of thumb, big SUVs use a lot more fuel than small hatchbacks and city cars. Generally, the same is true of electric cars, and naturally it affects how much it will cost to keep your car running.
As an example, the tiny Seat Mii (2020-) city car is one of the most frugal EVs we’ve tested. It used just 17.3kWh per 100km in our tests, which is very low.
Based on average home energy rates of 19.19p per kWh, that would cost you around £480 to drive 9,000 miles (the average annual pre-Covid mileage driven by respondents to our last car survey).
Whereas the enormous Mercedes EQC (2019-), pictured above, is one of the least-efficient electric cars we’ve tested. In our tests it used 27.6kWh per 100km.
That increase of 10.3kWh per 100km to 27.6 per 100km equates to a total charging cost of £767 – nearly £300 more than the dinky Seat Mii.
While these differences might not be that surprising, there are some unexpected exceptions to the rule. The most efficient electric car we’ve tested is the Hyundai Ioniq EV – a large hatchback (similar in size to a Toyota Prius), which is substantially bigger than the tiny Seat Mii city car. It used an astonishingly low average of 16.3kWh per 100km in our tests, equating to just £453 to drive that 9,000 miles.
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Bosses at German car firm Audi have today confirmed plans to phase-out petrol and diesel models, with a deadline of 2026 set for the release of its final vehicles with an internal combustion engine.
After that date the brand will cease development of fossil-fuelled cars and redirect attention to pure electrification.
By 2033, Audi says it will no longer offer petrol and diesel-engined models into its European showrooms – though it will continue to sell them in China.
Audi became the latest in a host of car makers to outline their intentions to do away with the internal combustion engine over the course of the next decade, following the likes of Fiat, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo, as well as exotic brands including Bentley and Lamborghini.
Like many rival manufacturers, Audi’s goal is to be net-zero carbon by 2050 – the same carbon-neutrality target set by parent group VW.
Part of this process will see the end of development of internal combustion engines come in five years’ time.
Audi e-tron (Image: Audi)
From 2026 there will be no investment into evolving its petrol and diesel offering and all models removed from sale some seven years later.
But while there won’t be any new engines coming to market, Audi says it will continue to build its existing fossil-fuelled powertrains for China, as the market is expected to continue growing after 2033.
For Europe, the schedule for winding-down availability of petrol and diesel models begins with immediate effect, as the German car maker plans to launch ‘more than 20’ electric ‘e-tron’-badged vehicles before 2025.
Its latest electric car, the e-tron GT, has received rave reviews and is, despite a high starting price of £79,900, experiencing high demand.
Already due to launch next year is the large Q6 e-tron SUV, while an electrified version of the A6 luxury saloon is also due in 2023.
Speaking at the Climate Neutrality Foundation conference on Wednesday, CEO Markus Duesmann said: ‘Audi is ready to make its decisive and powerful move into the electric age.
‘Through our innovative strength, we offer individuals sustainable and carbon-neutral mobility options.’
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Demand for electric vehicles has overtaken diesel engines for the first time in the new car leasing market, new figures indicate.
The data from comparison site Leasing.com shows sales enquiries for EVs – comprising battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids and hybrid – outperformed demand for diesel vehicles throughout the second quarter of 2021, after steadily increasing since the start of the year.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 (Image: hyundai.co.uk)
Since January, BEV inquiries have risen 27% and hybrids by 57%, with the biggest increase being seen in plug-in hybrids at 78%. In contrast, petrol vehicles only saw a 3% growth and diesel plummeted by 13%.
Leasing.com expects to see BEVs hit 20% of overall enquires in 2021.
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Good cabin space, plenty of on-board tech, a well-resolved drive and decent real-world range, but still short on the desirability needed to justify its price.
What is it?
This is the mid-level longest-range version of the new Audi Q4 E-tron, which itself could be thought of as Audi’s first mass-market electric car. Coming after the bigger, pricier and more luxurious E-tron SUV and the Porsche Taycan-related E-tron GT pseudo sports car, this is the model that, Audi will hope, will begin to give the vast majority of its customers an affordable – but also still a desirable, usable and versatile – route into EV ownership.
In smaller-batteried 168bhp form, the Q4 E-tron can be had from just a whisker over £40,000. The version we’re testing is slightly more expensive, but it combines a 201bhp rear-mounted electric motor with a drive battery of a usable 77kWh of capacity, and advertises some 316 miles of WLTP-lab-test-verified range. That’s a figure competitive with the longer-range version of the Polestar 2, albeit not quite equal to the very longest-range versions of the Tesla Model 3 and Ford Mustang Mach-E (both of which can currently be had for a little more outlay than our Q4 test car). For a sub-£45,000 EV, however, it’s decent battery range for the money, while 125kW fast-charging ability as standard on bigger-batteried cars makes long-range usability all the easier to contemplate.
The Q4 E-tron becomes Audi’s electric sibling for the Volkswagen ID 4 and Skoda Enyaq, taking the VW’s Group’s MEB specialised electric car platform as its mechanical basis and slotting into the wider Audi showroom range just where you’d expect it to: as a mid-sized crossover SUV sized between the Q3 and Q5. Audi’s key claim for the car is that it has outstanding interior packaging, though: passenger space that makes it feel much more like a full-sized SUV on the inside, despite measuring less than 4.6m in length on the outside, thanks to that space-efficient architecture.
The other notable departure here is to do with mechanical layout. While the range-topping E-tron 50 version of the Q4 will have two drive motors and independently controlled quattro four-wheel drive, the lower E-tron 35 and mid-range E-tron 40 become the first Audi mainstream production models in modern history with rear-wheel drive (not counting the rear-driven versions of the R8 supercar).
Q4 e-tron (Image: audi.co.uk)
What’s it like?
Audi clearly isn’t afraid of the potential of electric drive to rewrite the rulebook on how its cars are laid out, then – or even how they look. Making EVs will mean embracing change for every ‘legacy brand’, after all – and Audi has the advantage of being part of a manufacturing group in which the cost and risk of making the switch can be shared around. Sounds very sensible.
Even so, the Q4 is quite a strange-looking car. When you stand back and take it in, you’ll quickly see that it looks much less like either a Q3 or Q5 from some angles than some slightly angry, high-rised, 150%-scale modern take on the original A2 hatchback. The car’s bonnet and front overhang are very short, its cabin and wheelbase are both very long in proportion to its overall length, and its waistline is high, with an awful lot of metalwork on show below it.
Luxury car design convention has held for decades that the length of a car’s bonnet, and the distance presented between the front wheel arch and the base of the windscreen – ‘the premium gap’, as it has become known – are key in defining the visual appeal of a car you might be inclined to pay a premium for. Well, the Q4 E-tron hasn’t got one; couldn’t really have less of one, actually.
It has, instead, a slightly stunted, snub-nosed look in profile, those busy body surfaces and two-tone arches and sills all clear attempts to disguise the sort of proportions that would otherwise look awkward and bulky. It might have been fair enough, of course, if the Q4 had come along earlier, for Audi to have simply declared that “electric cars are different” and that it isn’t fair to judge them for aesthetic appeal as you might an equivalent combustion-engined car. Ten years ago, or even five, we might have swallowed that.
But today – when EVs like the Jaguar I-Pace, Honda E, Polestar 2 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 have all showed us differently? Surely, it’s for Audi to justify its standing as a design brand, and its premium positioning, with a better-looking electric car? In my view, they’ve missed the target by a distance here.
The view from the inside of the Q4 outwards isn’t much more familiar. You sit at a midway compromise of normal- and SUV-typical eyelines, but your view of the front of the car and the wider world outside is hampered by steeply raked A-pillars, a steeply raked windscreen, and by that short bonnet that slopes away from you as it advances, whose forward extremity is therefore quite hard to judge. The car’s windscreen angle is like that in order to provide good aerodynamics for the Q4, no doubt; also to provide room to accommodate the projector for the car’s augmented-reality head-up display, which Audi touts as a major technical selling point, ahead of the driver.
There is, however, certainly plenty of room inside the Q4. Both head room and leg room in the front row are very generous for a car of this size, likewise occupant space in the back. You won’t find the potential to slide or to individually fold the back seats down, but taller adults could nonetheless still travel very comfortably. Storage space is equally good, the car’s angular door console design including angled bottle holders at a higher level, as well as decent-sized pockets further below.
The Q4’s dashboard is of a bold, angular, geometric design, which extends even to include a slightly off-circular steering wheel with flattened-off top and bottom sections. There’s a three-tier centre stack, with the infotainment system on its top level, the gear selector and drive mode controller on the second level, and extra storage on the lowest one.
It looks imaginative and attractive enough, but the Q4’s interior doesn’t impress so much on a tactile level, or with the attention to detail that Audi usually lavishes on perceived quality. Our test car had trim materials lacking in a bit of variety, relying a lot on glossy black panels, which are vulnerable to smudgy finger marks. It also featured quite a lot of hard, dull, plain-feeling moulded plastics, many of which – around the steering wheel, centre console and door consoles in particular – had been left with sharper raised edges and fitted together a little imprecisely. The door pockets, which would typically have a felt or rubber lining in an Audi, had been left hard and slippery, for their contents to slide around noisily within as you drive. Those bottle holders, meanwhile, don’t have the sprung retaining supports that you’ll find in the in-board cupholders, and so their contents can rattle and roll around similarly. Is this Audi cabin quality? It’s debatable.
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Demand for electrified vehicles has overtaken that of diesel-powered models for the first time in the leasing sector, according to Leasing.com.
Sales enquiry data from the car leasing comparison site shows demand for electrified vehicles – consisting of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and hybrid vehicles – has been steadily increasing since the start of the year and has outperformed demand for diesel vehicles throughout the second quarter of 2021.
This reflects the overall new car market’s shift away from diesel, as highlighted in the latest registration figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and traders. In the year to date diesel vehicles have achieved an 18% market share, while electrified vehicles have managed 21.7%.
Volkswagen ID 4 (Image: Volkswagen.co.uk)
Dave Timmis, managing director of Leasing.com, said: “We’ve been planning for the UK market to shift towards electric drivetrains, but the rate at which they’ve overtaken diesel has been surprising.
“The rise of electric vehicles is being driven by increased accessibility. The market was previously dominated by relatively expensive models such as the Tesla Model S, while newer cost-effective models like the Hyundai Ioniq and the Vauxhall Corsa E are now opening up EVs to all motorists in the UK and leasing is helping to make them affordable.”
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With any transformation of an industry – and in particular an industry that relies so heavily on consumer habits and preferences – there are a myriad of questions to be answered and hurdles to be solved. Anyone familiar the decarbonisation of transport could probably give you a list as long as your arm: the availability of chargepoints, the impact of increased use of electricity on the grid, electricity vs hydrogen, the high upfront cost of electric vehicles (EVs) etc.
Although these require long-term planning that must start now, most will not become problems unless mass uptake of EVs is achieved. However, this can’t happen without a clear, concise plan to support everyone – and not just your typical early adopter – in making the switch. Without a plan, the high upfront costs and lack of driveways for private home chargers in many communities run a real risk of remaining too prohibitive.
Early adopters of new technologies are typically not your average user, and often reflect not only those who are clued up but also those who can afford to shell out on a new bit of new kit. Seen time and time again across many different sectors, the example perhaps most well known by those in the energy circles is domestic rooftop solar PV, which in the heady days of the early feed-in tariff was predominantly adopted in more affluent areas with a high proportion of detached housing, according to statistics released by what was then the Department of Energy and Climate Change in 2012.
Indeed, this is also a trend that EVs are seemingly following. A 2015 report for the Department for Transport found that most private EV owners at the time were middle-aged, male, well-educated, affluent and lived in areas with households containing two or more cars, and with the ability to charge at home.
Ubitricity Electric Avenue project lamppost charging (Image: Siemens)
Of course, this was six years ago and there has therefore, been plenty of time for the demographics to change. However a 2019 report carried out by Frontier Economics on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund found that wealthy people were still buying EVs at higher rates than those on lower incomes, and that half of all ultra-low emission vehicles were owned by households in the richest two income deciles, compared to only a quarter for internal combustion engines (ICE). Meanwhile, households in the lowest two income deciles made up just 4% of ULEV owners, but over 10% of ICE vehicle owners.
There are a number of reasons behind this, with the upfront cost of an EV – which is higher than an ICE equivalent despite lower lifetime costs – a key factor, although it will likely change as prices continue to fall.
A second factor is that many lower income households, particularly in urban areas, do not have access to off street parking via driveways, meaning they are unable to install a private chargepoint. This either results in them having to rely on more expensive public rapid charging, or being left out of the transition completely.
In fact, the 2019-2020 English Housing Survey by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government found that in the social housing sector, just 1% of dwellings were classed as detached houses – and therefore more likely to have a driveway – while 36% were purpose built high-rise flats, a significant increase on the 11% in the private sector.
On-street charging and moving away from the early adopter
So how do you solve this, and place the entire breadth of society at the heart of this transition? It would be easy for the EV charging sector to put this problem on the backburner and target the low hanging fruit of the typical early adopter, but just a quick glance at the work of some of the well-known names – and indeed lesser known – in the sector proves otherwise.
Enter on-street charging. Enter companies like ubitricity, Connected Kerb, Source London, Trojan Energy, Char.gy and many more. Enter a different way of thinking of EV charging.
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