A significant milestone has been reached in the UK’s transition to electric vehicles (EVs). According to the Government, the availability levels of public chargers across the country has now surpassed 75,000, as efforts continue to keep these numbers growing. 

The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced that chargers are being added to the nationwide network at a rate of about one every 29 minutes. 

Ministers hope that such rapid expansion in the country’s charging infrastructure will help give motorists greater confidence to switch to EVs. In February, EVs accounted for about a quarter of cars sold, and the UK was Europe’s biggest EV market last year. 

The Government has said it is investing more than £2.3 billion to assist industry and consumers in transitioning to EVs. 

This, the Sir Keir Starmer-led administration stated, was helping to generate well-paid jobs, while attracting investment and supporting the UK’s drive to become a “clean energy superpower”. 

“We’re not stopping here – the number of chargers will continue to grow” 

With the 75,000 public chargers being additional to the more than 680,000 domestic chargepoints that now exist in England alone, the necessary infrastructure is clearly coming together to make British motorists’ lives easier when they get behind the wheel of an EV. 

Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander, commented that “with prices coming down, new models constantly introduced on the market, and a public charging network expanding at lightning speed, there’s never been a better time to make the switch to an EV.” 

She added: “We’re not stopping here – with both government and private investment, the number of chargers will continue to grow.” 

Big ambitions signalled for chargepoint installations, as EV sales climb in the UK 

The DfT has said that an additional 100,000 on-street and local chargers will be rolled out over the coming years – including in smaller towns and rural areas – with the use of £381 million from the department’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund (LEVI). 

Already, the number of chargepoints in rural parts of the UK has been firmly on the up, a 45% increase having been seen in 2024. 

Another recent announcement by the department revealed it had rolled out over 1,400 chargepoints at schools, as well as more than 59,000 chargers at offices and workplaces around the country. 

Such efforts illustrate the Government’s determination to make chargepoints more accessible for motorists, so that the charging of an EV can be more easily done around people’s busy day-to-day lives. 

Sure enough, the department’s recent press release also highlighted the burgeoning market for EVs in the UK. February was a record month for sales of EVs, the Government said, while the more than 382,000 EVs sold in the UK during 2024 made it the largest EV market on the continent.  

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