The Government is overhauling the rules for charging electric cars at home.
For many, one of the largest barriers to electric vehicle ownership is the lack of convenient infrastructure to charge them.
It’s a particular issue for owners without a driveway or off-street parking who must search for available lampposts or communal charging points, or navigate a whirlwind of red tape to install one on their premises.
However, under new plans, owners without a private driveway will no longer need planning permission to install a cross-pavement charging gullies.
Drivers could also be spared the prohibiting £250 application fee and have their cases fast-tracked, while a consultation for removing the requirement for planning permission is underway.
Charging points will also be required by law in all new covered public car parks.
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The government has also said it is working with regulator Ofgem to tackle landlords who charge tenants above the market rate for home charging.
The latest package of measures will be subject to a consultation with the industry.
Car buyers are currently incentivised to go electric with a £3,750 government grant on 39 models.
The UK is currently the second largest EV market in Europe, with electric cars covering 30 per cent of new registrations in 2023, according to data from the International Energy Agency.
However a major sticking point for EV owners is charging infrastructure.
While the UK now has more than 86,000 charging points, more than half provide power of 8kw or less, requiring anywhere between five and 12 hours for a full charge.
According to Zapmap, just 9,250 machines support ‘ultra-rapid’ charging at more than 150kw, or approximately 20 to 30 minutes to fully replenish an empty battery.
By comparison, it takes an average of five minutes to fill up an empty tank with fuel in a petrol car.
More than half of the charging points installed since the beginning of the year are of the slowest variant.
As part of a drive towards electric vehicles, the government confirmed this summer it aimed to install 100,000 new chargepoints in the ‘coming years’.
However, charging could be made more affordable by allowing more owners to plug their vehicles into their homes, where electricity costs, while increasing, can be as much as a third of that at public charging points.
Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said the reforms would make it ‘fairer’ and ‘easier’ to charge EVs.
She said: ‘These reforms will improve infrastructure for the EV revolution, increase chargepoints across the country and open up affordable home charging to thousands more households.’
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