Electric car marketplace lacks spark

Electric car marketplace lacks spark

The electric car market is suffering from flat batteries and seeing the slow growth predicted by industry experts, as shown in figures obtained in Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the BBC.

The FOI requests were made by the Radio 4 magazine programme 'You and Yours', and targeted the usage statistics of charging stations for electric vehicles throughout the UK. The results of processing the statistics showed that numerous charge points were going days and weeks without being utilised.

Despite millions being spent on the installation of charging points for electric cars over the past few years, it seems that they are not being used as often as thought. In total £7.2 million has been spent by UK councils to upgrade and install charging stations for electric vehicles in the past three years. However, according to usage statistics, we see that over 16% of councils across the UK have at least one charging station that has not received any use in over a year. What is more alarming, is that only around 30% of councils have a charging station that is used more than once weekly. This equates to certain charging stations being virtually owned by one electric vehicle.

A government spokesman for the Department for Transport (DfT) was quick to defend the spending. He commented that massive investment is being put into the low emissions car sector of the UK automotive marketplace, and that this includes the zero emission electric vehicles. He added that between April and June this year, there were 966 grants claimed for electric vehicles, which nearly doubles the number granted last year.

The DfT also said it would be persevering with it's pledge to increase the availability of car charging stations throughout the UK.

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