Boom in electric vehicle charging points

With the end of the sale of petrol cars now brought forward to 2035, there is a boom in electric vehicle charging points construction opportunities.

Chargers are being added weekly and more and more are being included in new construction projects according to exclusive construction market analysis by Glenigan.

There was a 19% rise in the number of projects including an electric vehicle charger that started construction in 2019. Over the last two years, more than 700 charging points have been included in new building projects starting on site.

Boris boost

In January, prime minister Boris Johnson made a commitment to spend £500 million on expanding the charger network so that no driver of an electric vehicle should be more than 30 miles from a charger.

According to Zap-Map, there were 17,498 devices at 10,815 public charging points across the UK at start of February.

New points are being made available weekly as a huge roll-out begins to facilitate the country’s growing fleet of electric vehicles.

Big names on the starting grid

Tesco and Volkswagen have teamed up to add 2,400 new chargers at 600 branches of the supermarket chain in conjunction with Pod Point. Many other big names in the car industry are also involved.

Ionity is a joint-venture between Daimler, BMW, Ford, and Volkswagen and is launching 40 sites, each with six chargers that can access the group’s 350kW charge network.
Ionity’s first site was at Maidstone (Glenigan Project ID: 18080432) and Glenigan’s research has identified a swathe of other chargers being rolled out by the group.

BP has purchased Chargemaster and is rolling out a network 400 150kW chargers by next year. These range from petrol station forecourts to new projects such as car parks like the £580,000 multi-storey car park due to start construction this summer at Gibbet Hill Road in Coventry (Glenigan Project ID: 18202605).

In the pipeline

Glenigan’s construction data shows that London is benefiting from the most in the boom in chargers. Last year, there was a 56% rise in the number of chargers starting construction in London.

The biggest roll-out has been in Merton with 25 chargers installed with Bluepoint particularly active in this part of London.

In 2018, Bluepoint, which is the British arm of French multinational Bolloré, said it planned to install 1,000 charge points across the capital.

Glenigan’s research shows Bluepoint heavily active last year in Richmond, where 20 chargers were built, and other London boroughs such as Westminster, where a total of 17 chargers were added, Lambeth and Lewisham.

There has also been a big rise in installation of chargers outside of London, the biggest roll-out has been in Scotland.

Glenigan’s research shows chargers installed across the length and breadth of the country from an Ionity charger in Gretna (Project ID: 18298969) to a charger in a £500,000 Co-op foodstore and petrol station on the Isle of Skye (Glenigan Project ID: 18163543).

Last summer, more than 1,000 chargers were available in Scotland including around 200 50kW chargers. Transport Scotland claimed that the average distance between any given location to the nearest public charging point was just 2.78 miles in Scotland compared to 3.77 miles in England. That is the benchmark as the roll out of electric car chargers gains pace.