Banbury: How are electric car chargers changing?

Around 35% of all charging points are in London, with 12% in the South East

Nearly half of all public charging points for electric cars are in London and the South East - and most of those are inside London.

That's changing, but what will be the effect of the government's announcement that sales of new petrol and diesel cars can continue for an extra five years, until 2035?

The car charging hub near the M40 in Banbury can plug in 32 cars at once, and there are a small but growing number of these large hubs.

This is what will gradually replace petrol stations - row upon row of places to plug in your car.

Reflecting electric car ownership, they are concentrated in the South East.

The number of public chargers has increased by 43% in a year, according to Zapmap, an app which helps motorists find charging points.

After a slow start, the pace of change is picking up.

In 2018, there were 10,000. Two years later there were 20,000. Today there are 50,000.

And the number is expected to double again during 2025.

There are "challenges" with electric 4x4 vehicles, says Lorna McAtear

The Banbury hub is run by Basingstoke company Instavolt.

"There are still a lot of myths surrounding driving electric cars," Chief Executive Adrian Keen says.

"There's no connection charge and no subscription - just tap your payment card to start the charge and pay for what you use."

But plugging into a charging hub still costs around six times more per kilowatt hour than charging overnight at home, according to the AA.

The power is supplied from the National Grid, where Fleet Manager Lorna McAtear runs its 9,000 vehicles, of which 1,500 are fully electric.

"Ford, Nissan and other manufacturers have said they will press ahead with going all-electric by 2030," she points out.

"There is a challenge with the 4x4 utility market, because there aren't yet many big electric vehicles that can tow 3.5 tonnes, and we require a lot of those - but the public network is really ramping up.

"I struggle to keep up with all the new chargers going in: the number is growing exponentially each month - it is meeting demand," she added.

Instavolt runs a public electric vehicle rapid charging network

There are approaching a million electric vehicles - EVs - on our roads. That may sound a lot, but it's still only 3% of the total.

That will change fast - EVs now outsell diesel cars by four to one. Although there has been a blip in retail sales, because of the rising cost of living.

But half of all new electric car sales are to the company car market, and that hasn't dropped.

Regardless of the government's change of deadline from 2030 to 2035 for ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, this trend is only heading in one direction.

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