A public charging penalty is emerging for electric drivers
3 ways people relying on public charging are losing out
Over time, electric vehicles (EVs) will replace the fossil-fueled cars used by most drivers today. Right now, the higher upfront cost puts EVs out of reach for many. But the cost is falling and the number of EV drivers continues to increase. From 2030 all new cars and vans sold must be electric. Is the public charging network ready for that?
In the last 5 years the number of people contacting our consumer service about electric vehicle problems has more than tripled.* To understand people’s problems we carried out research with 40 drivers. Most participants rely on the public charging network, but some can charge at home as well. We’ve also looked at research from other organisations including the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV).
There are 3 main problems:
1) Not enough public chargepoints in the right places
Demand already outstrips public chargepoints availability. They’re still unevenly spread across the country. And as the population of EV drivers changes, where chargepoints are located on our roads will need to change.
Latest government figures show that the ratio of chargepoints to people in London was 4 times that of the North West. And OZEV’s research finds that the majority (69%) of non-EV drivers without off street parking say they habitually park their car in front of or near their house every night.
There are certain groups likely to be impacted more by the hassle factor of struggling to find a chargepoint. For families with young children, we heard that a smooth journey from A to B really matters.
“Driving everywhere with a toddler, you don’t want to be caught with no battery and stranded”
“I’m driving 200 miles to visit family, and need to stop to charge my EV — but the children are getting restless”
People with inflexible schedules or short on time are also likely to struggle more.
“It can start to get stressful when you’ve a schedule to keep”
“We had free charging until last year through the council. Since that finished we use a park-and-ride a few times a week and get a bus home”
Back in 2021, the government announced a fund for councils based on local need. We expected the government’s final decisions in February 2022, according to its own guidelines. But this, and necessary legislation, is now long overdue.
The sooner the government publishes its final decisions, the sooner we’ll have more chargepoints where we need them.
2) Public charging costs more than home charging
People who are unable to charge at home (generally people without private parking) are paying more.
Analysis from the Resolution Foundation last year revealed that someone relying on public charging pays nearly 6times more per year (£712) than someone with a home charger on a low-cost overnight tariff (£139).
This disparity gets more alarming when we consider the demographics of these 2 groups. There’s a clear link to income. Properties with a garage or driveway are home to 76% of the wealthiest families. So households on lower incomes are likely to pay more for EV charging.
We welcome recent government funding for pilots testing out technologies such as smart street lamposts, bringing cheaper smart charging to the public network.
But a real sticking point is VAT. People using electricity from public chargepoints pay 20% VAT. Meanwhile people using a home chargepoint pay only 5% VAT. This unfairly penalises poorer households — they’re more likely to rely on public charging, yet they pay more.
By 2030, the government should bring down the cost of charging at public chargepoints by lowering VAT to 5%, in line with home charging.
3) Challenging payment processes at public chargepoints
As well as paying more to charge, people relying on public charging have a harder time keeping their vehicle charged than people who can charge at home. We heard that public charging feels unreliable, inconsistent and tricky to plan around.
People want to see clear prices and track their spending
Drivers struggle to compare prices and track their charging spend. They often have to take what they can get.
“I couldn’t see where it said you had to pay or what you had to pay”
“It’s not worth it to keep driving around looking for a slightly cheaper charger”
The government has proposed requirements for all providers to display pricing information as “price per kWh”. This should help drivers to compare prices and make decisions based on price.
Participants recalled some good examples of pricing information. Some providers have apps that help them compare pricing in advance and see their spending over time. Clear pricing and the ability to track spending are likely to be especially important to people on lower incomes.
People with low digital confidence will need support
Participants agreed that using public charging would be challenging for people less familiar with digital payment processes and apps.
“Each has their own unique process in terms of the sequencing of tasks”
“I couldn’t imagine my parents being able to cope with it — they don’t even have a smartphone, so it would be impossible for them”
Improving the accessibility of public chargepoints has been a recent priority for the government. Working with the British Standards Institute and disability charity Motability, it published the voluntary accessible charging standard. This sets out evidence-based specifications for things like kerb height and bollard spacing. We contributed to the drafting, as part of BSI’s review panel for the standard. But the scope only covers the physical aspects of public chargepoints, rather than their apps and payment processes.
The government has proposed a requirement for providers to make a 24/7 helpline available at each public chargepoint, to support people struggling to use them. Our hope is that this incentivises providers to improve the design of their apps and payment processes.
We want to see a continued momentum from the government on improving accessibility. A logical next step is to broaden the BSI accessible charging standard to include non-physical aspects and consider mandating the standard. The web content accessibility guidelines and the government’s own guidance on chargepoint design could be a good starting point for this.
Beyond 2030, there’ll be more and more EV drivers without the option of charging at home and who might not otherwise have chosen to go electric.
The government should:
1. Finalise its long overdue decisions about the regulatory landscape. Several of these problems could be improved by the consumer protections and infrastructure funding already proposed.
2. Reduce VAT on public charging costs from 20% to 5%, closing the unfair price gap between public charging and home charging.
3. Go further on accessibility, by broadening the BSI accessible charging standard to cover accessible design of providers’ apps and payment processes
4. Monitor and build understanding about the impact of different circumstances on people’s satisfaction with public charging (for example people on lower incomes). Publish the results and use the data to take steps that ensure certain groups aren’t left behind.
The clock is ticking towards the government’s deadline to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. With EVs becoming more and more commonplace, the government needs to keep its foot on the pedal.
*Data from the Citizens Advice consumer service between 2016 and 2021. We received 62 cases about EV public charging in 2016 and 271 cases in 2021.
At Citizens Advice, we’re the official advocate for domestic energy consumers. We use our unique insight and research to campaign for better policies.
Further details of the findings from our research with EV drivers on public charging experiences are available in the full research report, completed for us by BritainThinks.
