London now has twice as many rapid electric vehicle chargers than it did at the beginning of 2020, after it installed 300 new chargers over the last year.
The new installation figures are a massive boost to the capital, which continues to lead the way in the roll-out of electric vehicles. At the beginning of 2020, there were 200 rapid chargers in the city, now there are more than 500.
Alex Williams, director of city planning for Transport for London, commented, “Rapid charging points will play a key part in decarbonising transport and the shift to cleaner vehicles. To help drivers make the switch from older, more polluting vehicles to electric, they need the confidence that plugging in will be convenient and hassle-free.”
It’s not just about the rapid chargers, however, with London boroughs also continuing to provide an increasing number of on-street residential chargepoints through the Go Ultra Low City Scheme. This scheme has now delivered more than 2,000 chargers, with more than 3,000 forecast to be delivered by Spring 2021.
Huge disparity in EV charging roll-out
Despite the huge increase in the number of chargers now available in the UK’s capital, there is still a huge disparity across the country as to where chargers are being installed. London is said to offer some of the most favourable conditions to those looking to install EV chargers, but the same can’t be said for the North of England.
Earlier this month it was revealed by Centrica that there’s a huge disparity in the planned roll-out of EV chargers.
According to Centrica’s data, Southern English councils are planning to install two and a half times as many on-street chargers than councils in Northern England, Northern Ireland, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales combined. In fact, the bulk of chargers that are set to be installed will be located in Southern England, a total of 6,713 compared to just 2,604 in the other areas.