Electric vehicle charging infrastructure

Encouraging a switch to electric vehicles will play an important role in ensuring that the Government meets its air pollution and climate change commitments. A key question, therefore, is what sort of infrastructure is needed to encourage this switch?

Analytically Driven was approached by the private hire company Addison Lee to provide an analysis of the potential benefits of boosting the supply of rapid charge points for electric vehicles in London. Addison Lee was concerned that insufficient rapid charging points in London meant that without Government intervention the company would be unable to switch its fleet to electric vehicles, despite a desire to do so.  

The analysis highlighted that, if the aim is to reduce air pollution, it is important to focus on vehicle mileage rather than number of vehicles. For example, Addison Lee drivers travel on average 144 miles in a shift, which is the equivalent mileage of 10 typical London commuters travelling to and from work. Therefore, converting Addison Lee drivers to electric vehicles will have a much bigger impact on air pollution than converting domestic users.

However, it is this high mileage that makes the rapid charging infrastructure so important and current plans to provide just 300 rapid charge points in London by 2020 would not support a switch. Indeed, estimates suggest that it would take 330 rapid recharging points just to support Addison Lee's fleet and if just 25% of London's taxi and private hire vehicles were to switch to battery electric vehicles then 2,135 rapid charge points would be needed.

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