UK installs 4,000th EV rapid charger — and it’s just getting started

The UK is slowly but surely getting up to speed with fast-charging connectors.

According to EV charging infrastructure trackers, Zap-Map, the UK now has 4,000 rapid chargers installed.

In a tweet posted earlier today, Zap-Map declared that it’s now tracked the rapid chargers, which are installed at 2,667 locations. Zap-Map classes a rapid charger as anything capable of delivering more than 50 kW DC of power to an EV.

For comparison, according to Nederland Elektrisch, the Netherlands — which has 1/3rd the population of the UK — has over 1,850 EV fast-chargers installed at the start of this year. The Netherlands also has the fastest growing charging network in the world.

⚡️⚡️Milestone alert – there are now 4,000 rapid charge points across the UK at more than 2,600 locations⚡️⚡️

Over 100 added in the last month and up from 2,900 a year ago.#evcharging #rapidcharging #newconnectionshttps://t.co/FMUXGvNk50 pic.twitter.com/xYo7HtxbRx

— Zap-Map (@zap_map) February 1, 2021

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The new figures show that the UK has added just over 1,000 rapid chargers over the past year, but if they want to catch up to the Dutchies (chargers per capita) they have to keep up this rapid advance. Still, the UK’s increase is great news for long distance drivers of high-performance EVs.

Most rapid chargers are capable of charging the average EV from zero to 80% charge in well under an hour.

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In January of last year, the UK passed the 30,000 connector mark and has since gone on to add another 7,000 chargers of all types over the past 12 months.

Around 30% of the UK’s EV chargers are located in Greater London and the South East, where most of the people are anyway.

New chargers are always good news for EV drivers. Rapid chargers even more so, as they are the best tool we have right now for long-distance, low-hassle electric motoring.

As government bans on the sale of new combustion engine vehicles come into force in the next decade, the UK will see a large scale development of EV charging infrastructure.

Companies like GridServe, which opened its first dedicated EV charging service station last December, has plans to open over a hundred in the country in coming years.

One thing is for sure, the country needs more locations like this if it’s to support a future of electric vehicles. Indeed, it’s great to see the UK surely and steadily adding more EV chargers every week, but this is very much still the beginning.