UK on track to reach 300,000 electric vehicle charging points. Subscribe to Electric Vehicle News Bitesize Podcast for FREE to hear more!
The UK is on track to meet the government’s target of installing 300,000 new electric car chargers by 2030, the transport secretary has said.
Huw Merriman told MPs that ministers expect “at least 300,000 public charge points will be installed across the UK by 2030”.
He cited a report by New AutoMotive titled ‘On the Road to 2030′, which said the “charge point rollout is progressing at an adequate pace, growing by a third every 12 months and the UK is on track to meet the expected 300,000 public charges by the end of 2030”.
The transport minister noted: “So, don’t just take my word for it.”
His comments came during a debate at Westminster Hall in which the government’s aims were seriously questioned by MPs from across the political spectrum.
Opening the debate, the Conservative chair of the health and social care committee Steve Brine asked: “Are we really ready to fully transition to electric vehicles?”
He went on: “Last March in the Government’s electric vehicle infrastructure strategy, it highlighted that 300,000 public electric charging points would be needed by 2030 across the UK to meet the demand following the phase-out of petrol and diesel vehicles.
“However, in January of this year, just last month, it was reported just over 37,000 of such devices have been installed.
“Can the minister update the House as these figures clearly suggest the infrastructure is lagging a little behind schedule and it’s not unreasonable I suppose to question whether the UK will be able to meet this target.”
Mr Brine also argued “there’s a huge disparity in the geographical distribution of charging devices in the UK”.
Meanwhile, shadow transport minister Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi insists that at the current pace, the government will miss its target by 20 years.
He said: “We need to instal 37,000 charging devices a year to meet the Government’s own target of 300,000 by 2030, but last year, we achieved just a mere quarter of that.
“At the current pace ministers will miss their own target by a staggering 20 years. There are now 30 electric vehicles for every charging device compared with 16 at the start of 2020.”
Mr Dhesi said Labour “stands ready to turbocharge the electric vehicle rollout”, adding: “In under seven years the sale of new purely petrol and diesel cars will end. Motorists are ready to make the switch, manufacturers are ready to make the switch. But what they need is a government that is ready to make this switch, but this Government has failed to rise to the challenge.”
Mr Merriman said the target will be met “thanks to billions of pounds of investment by industry”.
He added: “There are more than 37,000 open access public chargers already on the UK roads, hundreds of thousands of charge points in homes and workplaces and more than 600 new chargers added to our road network each month on average. And in fact, public charging devices have more than tripled in the last four years.
“We are on track to meet expectations.”
Mr Merriman also noted colleagues in the Treasury are committed to ensuring that “motoring tax revenues keep pace with the changes brought about by the switch to electric vehicles whilst keeping transition affordable to consumers”.
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