More than 80 streets registered for on-street charging
72% of on-street chargers in the UK are in London
83 streets across Swindon are in need of on-street charging for electric vehicles.
A new report by Vauxhall has found that almost a quarter of UK businesses struggle to make the transfer to electric fleets because there are not enough charging stations.
Across the country, less than a third of on-street chargers are located outside of London.
Phil Douglas, the director of Vauxhall Electric Streets, said: “90% of small to medium sized enterprises want to make the switch to electric vans. They recognise that it would be good for the running cost of their business and also reputationally good because they're seen to do their part in decarbonising the UK as transport infrastructure.
“The problem they're telling us through this research is that they need to charge those vans overnight, typically at home with their staff. And the issue there is that 60% of households in urban areas don't have access to a driveway that makes home charging really easy. So, what those customers need is more publicly available charging in the residential space”.
In 2024, electric van sales went up by only 1.3% - that is 256 more vehicles than the year before.
Vauxhall is now calling for action to speed up the rollout of on street chargers.
“There's a local electric vehicle infrastructure fund that was launched last year, which gives councils money to do two things. One, to fund the installation of the actual charge points in the residential spaces. And secondly, to fund the hiring of experts to work for councils to help them make the right decisions about what kind of charge points and where they need to be.
“In addition to that, Rachel Reeves recently announced the investment by the National Wealth Fund into charge point operating firms, specifically to task them with installing more charge points in the residential area.
“So, there is a lot of central government funding to do this. What we're encouraging to do is to take that funding that exists from central government, marry it up with the data we're getting from the local residents and realise that electric vehicle infrastructure is a is a priority for their residents”.
Across the South West, 972 streets have registered their interest in on-street charging.
Even though the area is in line with the national average, the number of on-street chargers needs to up, according to Phil Douglas.
“In terms of number of public charges per 100,000 of the population, the South West is actually about average. But as we're seeing from the data, last year we went to 10% electric mix on van sales. This year we need to get that up to 16% in line with the government target.
“We're seeing that number in the early part of this year plateau around 10%. It's clear that we need to do much better than the national average everywhere, including the South West to encourage more people to make the switch. Really what we need is the South West and the whole of the UK to look more like London and the South East region”.
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