A FairCharge analysis of Department for Transport (DfT) figures has revealed that public money spent on installing off-street residential Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers is more than just over 15 times what has been spent on public on-street residential chargers.
The analysis of Department for Transport figures conducted by the FairCharge campaign shows that a total grant value of £104.5 million had been spent on the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) since the scheme’s inception in September 2014. In comparison, the DfT spent £6.8 million of grant funding on the On-street Residential Charging Scheme (ORCS) since the scheme was established in 2017. The total spend on the EVHS is fifteen (15.37) times more than the ORCS.
The grant funding for the EVHS led to the installation of 236,697 domestic charging devices, whereas the grant funding had only led to 2,038 public charging devices since the scheme was established.
Public money has led to over one hundred times more private than public chargers being installed to date. This is despite the fact that just over a third of households in England lack access to off-street parking, leading to yet more questions about whether the Government is doing enough to support the transition to Electric Vehicles for poorer households.
The Government have recently announced the EVHS will no longer accept applications from homeowners living in single-unit properties, but the revelations paint a clear picture about the relative lack of attention paid to date to the network of public chargers.
Quentin Willson, the former Top Gear presenter who is leading the FairCharge campaign, commented:
“Of course, the EVHS has been great in that is has led so many to make the switch to EVs – but it can’t be right that there is such a big a gap between public money spent supporting off-street and on-street charging. Figures like this add to the feeling that some have that EVs are the preserve of the wealthy."
“If the transition to net zero is to be successful then it must be fair. When it comes to EVs, it just isn’t fair that those who have access to driveways or garages have so much more Government help to support their charging needs than those – on-average much poorer – people who do not. Our FairCharge campaign is aimed at preventing exactly this sort of injustice.”
Notes:
1. Analysis based on the following DfT statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electric-vehicle-charging-device-grant-scheme-statistics-january-2022/electric-vehicle-charging-device-grant-scheme-statistics-january-2022. The figures are up to January 1 2022.
2. Data on households with/without off-street parking: https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/cars-parked-23-hours-a-day
3. More info about the FairCharge campaign available here: https://www.faircharge.co.uk/
4. See here the campaign’s change.org petition with more than 80,000 signatures: https://www.change.org/p/make-electric-vehicles-fairer-and-more-affordable-before-its-too-late