7:40 am, August 17, 2022
Only a quarter of electric car buyers would be happy to own an EV if they just had public chargers to rely on.
That’s according to research published today (Aug 17) by What Car? whose poll of 1,276 buyers – of which 265 (20.7 per cent) were in the market for an EV – found 74.7 per cent wouldn’t feel comfortable owning one if all they had were public chargers to recharge their car.
A total of 92.8 per cent of EV buyers surveyed could recharge their car at home or nearby, with 87.8 per cent already owning or planning to install a wallbox charger.
According to charging point map provider Zap-Map, there are currently more than 520,000 fully electric cars on UK roads and 33,281 charging devices across 20,336 locations – roughly one charging device for every 15 electric cars.
Buyers were also asked if they intended using their electric car as their main or secondary vehicle, with 92.4 per cent of them saying it would be their primary car for commuting and most trips.
Asked how much they expected to rely on public charging, 66.8 per cent of EV buyers said it wouldn’t be their main method but they’d use it when they needed to, while 12.8 per cent said they were unlikely to use public charging at all.
What Car? editor Steve Huntingford said: ‘The uptake of electric cars is one of the key success stories for the UK automotive sector, but for it to continue, the public charging network needs to improve.
‘The charging network still isn’t perceived to be good enough by buyers, creating a problem for those without access to off-street parking.’
