Positive news from the charging sector of the EV market as Zapmap, the UK's premier charge point mapping service, has confirmed that the nation has surpassed the significant milestone of 50,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging points installed and commissioned. This revelation follows the latest data from Zapmap, that highlights robust growth in the country's charge point infrastructure.
According to Zapmap, there are now more than 50,000 public charging devices installed across the UK. The 50,000th charging device was an ultra-rapid charger, recently installed at a service station in Weston-super-Mare and is operated by ‘en-route' provider MFG EV Power.
The milestone marks substantial progress in two critical aspects of the country's charging infrastructure. Recent quarterly statistics from Zapmap revealed a 68% increase in ultra-rapid charge points since September 2022, accompanied by a nearly identical growth rate in slower ‘destination' chargers.
This achievement also highlights acceleration in the pace of charge point installations over recent years. The UK reached the 40,000 mark in February 2023, with the milestone installation part of the GeniePoint network at Morrisons Southport.
Reflecting on the achievement, Melanie Shufflebotham, Co-founder & COO at Zapmap, said, “Hitting 50,000 public charging devices is a really important milestone for the country and illustrates the sea change behind the increased rate of charge point installations. Having passed 40,000 charge points in February, our predictions are that there will be 100,000 chargers by August 2025 – which would certainly be a major achievement. Alongside the number of high-power charging hubs in the UK more than doubling in the past year, as we saw last week, these are changes that bring real benefits to electric car drivers up and down the country.”
Given that companies like Connected Kerb have committed to 10,000 charger installations – it's easy to see how these new goals are readily achievable.
Ian Johnson, Chair of ChargeUK, said “This is a significant milestone and a testament to the investment, vision and hard work of our members. The rate of deployment is increasing all the time, in the last 12 months alone the public charge point network has increased by 43%. However, we can go further and faster with the right policies and help from government to remove barriers that constrain the roll-out. Public chargers are part of a wider picture. The way people charge their EV depends on their lifestyle, many people charge at home, others charge on their street, whilst many will either charge at destinations or en route on their journeys. Our members are focussed on ensuring drivers have access to the right charger in the right place.”
Dan Caesar, CEO at Fully Charged, told media “Hitting this milestone is a great achievement from the country’s charge point operators, and excellent news for anyone who drives an electric car or is thinking of getting one. Despite what you might read in some sections of the press, the upwards trend in the growth of the charging network could not be clearer. For those who are considering a switch to electric, you won’t regret it. Not only are electric cars essential for reaching Net Zero but they are simply better – and there are now over 50,000 places across the country where you can charge yours up again.”
William Bannister, CEO of MFG, added “I’m delighted that it was an MFG installation which brought Zapmap to a milestone as significant as 50,000 charging devices. It’s great to see statistics like this from Zapmap, not least because they highlight all the hard work that’s going into establishing a robust public charging network across the country. MFG are rolling out chargers at a significant pace, having recently hit our own milestone of 500 ultra-rapid chargers – and are already well on the way to delivering the next 500. As a network that brings fast, clean energy to electric car drivers across the country, we’re proud to partner with Zapmap and make paying for charging that much easier with Zapmap’s payment solution.”
James Court, CEO at EVA England, said “50,000 is a significant landmark, and shows the undeniable growth of charging infrastructure in the UK. Lack of charging, both real and perceived, is the biggest issue holding back electric vehicles, and hopefully we will see the blockers in planning and grid removed so that 50K milestones happen more frequently in the future.”
Ade Thomas, Founder of World EV Day, was also enthusiastic, “There has been a great deal of negative press about the number of public chargers. With the 50,000 threshold having been hit, on the UK's journey to being an EV nation, we should now start really talking up what a great job the British green tech sector are doing bringing this huge number of EV chargers online, and all in super quick time.”
New EV drivers visiting any number of forums or social media platforms and asking “Where is the best place to charge”, will probably get at least one suggestion to install Zapmap. The free version will tell you where to find certain kinds of chargers in an area, so you can put the address into your SatNav. The low-rate subscription version integrates the navigation part with the app itself.
All 50,000 of the reported charge points can be found on the Zapmap app. This may be a high-powered device to charge up quickly on a long journey, a destination charger at a retail outlet or car park to top up while parked or an on-street charger suitable for overnight charging.
In parallel, Zapmap Insights has developed a range of products that enable the industry to understand charge point profiles as well as the patterns of utilisation across the UK’s public charging network, helping to support both benchmarking requirements and investment decisions. Find out more on the Zapmap website.
It is great to see so many innovative British companies working hard toward a world with no fossil fuelled vehicles on the road. We all hope to see that ambition matched by the Government.