Electric car buyers lack confidence in UK public charging network
Just 12.8% of buyers said they are unlikely to use public charging at all, according to a recent What Car? survey...
Only a quarter of electric car buyers would be comfortable owning an electric car if they had to solely rely on the public charging network, according to the latest What Car? research.
A study of 1276 in-market buyers, of which 265 (20.7%) were in the market for an electric car, found 74.7% of buyers would not be comfortable owning one if they could only use public chargers to recharge their car.
The research also found 92.8% of electric car buyers are able to recharge their car at home or nearby, with 87.8% either already owning or planning to install a wallbox charger to cover home charging.
According to charging point map provider, Zap-Map, there are currently more than 520,000 fully electric cars on UK roads and 33,281 charging devices across 20,336 locations – equating to roughly one charging device for every 15 electric cars.
We also asked whether buyers intend to use their electric car as their primary or secondary vehicle, with 92.4% of buyers confirming the electric car will be the primary car they use for commuting and most trips.
When asked how much they expect to rely on public charging, 66.8% of electric car buyers said it will not be their main method of charging, but they’ll use it when they need to, while 12.8% said they are unlikely to use public charging at all.
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