London may have more EVs, but the rest of the country is catching up

It is expected that the largest cities will be at the forefront of EV adoption, but the rest of the country is catching up.

Incentives have driven EV adoption in London (e.g., congestion charge exemption and cheap parking), but ultimately central London housing stock is less suitable for EVs due to the lack of driveways and garages, making EV owners reliant on public, destination and on-route chargers

Whilst some of the most densely populated places in the UK have the current highest adoption rate (8% of fleet in areas like Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and City of London), there may be a natural slow down in adoption as those who have to park on the street find charging too difficult.

Areas which typically have more driveways and garages have seen the fastest growth in EV penetration in the last year, as seen in the below chart illustrating the relationship between the proportion of houses with driveways in a Local Authority and the growth in EV penetration in the last year.

This has big implications for how EV charging networks need to develop.

New EVs outside large cities will typically charge up at home, and have less use for destination or on- route charging. It also emphasises the importance of establishing convenient charging infrastructure in urban centres for those without driveways.

The roll out of simple solutions like gul-e, as well as the conversion of lamp posts to charge points (which can be done in as little as one hour) as standard infrastructure on every road will play a key part in making people without off-street parking feel comfortable in using an EV.?

In some cities it may be more suitable to focus on enabling EV charging in multi-storey car parks used for off-street residential parking. This could be especially relevant in continental European cities where the majority of the population live in apartments (e.g., 84% of the population in Spanish cities and 78% in Italian cities), whose cars would most likely be parked in off-street car parks attached to their apartment buildings.

To support the EV charging needs of these residents, the governments of most European countries offer generous funding to support landlords in installing EV chargers in urban apartment parking – for example, in Paris, the ADVENIR program provides grant funding for apartment landlords to recoup €500 per EV charging socket.

Innovative systems can also be gamechangers here, like wireless charging - either on roads or in parking locations where cables aren’t suitable.

With 60% of houses in UK cities and town centres not having off-street parking, it is clear that a huge value of investment is required.