90 per cent of EV owners will pay more to slash charge waiting times
Posted by: electime 6th November 2024
Busy Brits would pay between £10-£20 more per charge to slash waiting times when powering their electric vehicles, according to a recent survey from charge point manufacturer GARO.
The company asked a straw poll of 500 EV owners in the UK about their attitudes to EV charging, discovering that 90 per cent would happily pay additionally per kWh if it was guaranteed to slash waiting times by up to 15 minutes.
The biggest demand for faster charging is in Cardiff where 55 per cent of EV owners said they would happily pay more to reduce charging times, closely followed by Northern Ireland where 49 per cent said the same. The lowest need for speed is in the southwest of England where only 17 per cent would be happy to pay more.
While expanding the network of EV stations nationwide can help reduce waiting times, operators can create additional efficiencies by installing ultra-fast equipment. These high-powered units enable quicker refuelling, allowing more drivers to access each bay throughout the day.
The UK is making progress with chargepoint installations. Sixty thousand were plotted by Zapmap at the start of April 2024, however only a very small percentage are ultra-rapid solutions. The vast majority – 35,339 chargers – are slow chargers with a power rating of 3kW up to 8kW, representing 59 per cent of all charging devices.
The Government’s ambition is for there to be at least 300,000 public charge points by 2030. In 2021, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) stated that at least 2.3 million charge points would be needed nationwide by that date. However, EV owners are craving faster charge times as they struggle to integrate EVs into their busy lives.
Conor Charnley, UK e-Mobility Manager at GARO, said of the research: “The UK is making great headway in building the necessary electric vehicle infrastructure, but EV owners are clearly becoming frustrated with the lack of rapid charging solutions available and extended waiting times. If we are to truly overcome range anxiety in the mass transition towards EV, we need to ensure that we are not just expanding infrastructure but doing so with solutions that enable rapid and convenient charging.”
GARO’s research also found that the majority of EV owners (82 per cent) would prefer to use renewable energy to power their vehicles. For 17-24-year-olds, this figure rose to 89 per cent and for 25-34-year-olds, it was 92 per cent.
