Residents with private chargers are also starting to share their facilities. Services such as As a charger to offer a kind of Airbnb for charging, where drivers can book the use of neighbors’with the object.
Under-pavement cables could also help more people access private connection points, particularly on the UK’s many terraced streets, but they are not without their challenges.
Chris Richmond, who paid around £2,000 to install a drain in his terraced house in Bounds Green, London, now has access to cheaper charging and no longer has to rely on nearby public fixtures which he says are often busy or broken. But using his private charger requires parking directly in front of the house. “If someone has parked in the two spaces they work in front of your house, you’re stuffed,” he says.
Grants are available for some people who want to install new chargers, such as apartment dwellers and residential and commercial property owners, but will soon expire in March.
New home connection points are also needed to communicate in real time with energy suppliers, allowing companies to offer consumers lower prices when supply is plentiful and encouraging drivers to avoid peak times and reduce the load on the grid. “Our research and development is now much more focused on how we help customers optimize usage time,” says Melanie Lane, CEO of the home and business charger supplier Under Point.
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology is also being developed to allow cars to sell electricity back into the system. A 2020 survey by Ovo Energy found that drivers could earn an average of £340 a year doing so. Octopus Energy’s new V2G tariff guarantees free charging to drivers who plug in for around six hours a day, allowing the company to optimize their charging, as long as they stay below the 333kWh per month limit — roughly 19,000 km (12,000 miles) a year.
Despite the progress made in the past few years, many drivers still do not feel confident about the change. Recent surveys consistently show that drivers are concerned about cost, charging and battery life.
“The really big thing that plays into this is just perception,” says Ginny Buckley, founder of Electrifying.com, an electric vehicle shopping place for tips.
According to a survey of gasoline and diesel car drivers conducted for the non-profit organization Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit last April, more than half of respondents gave only two or fewer correct answers out of 10 statements about electric vehicles.
More needs to be done to tackle these public misconceptions, says Max Warburton, CFO of UK self-driving car startup Wayve. “It’s actually quite compelling to buy an electric vehicle, so we’re getting to the point where some of the apparent consumer reluctance is almost irrational,” he says.
