Public EV charging costs under official review
By Anthony Sharkey, Chief Operating Officer, Unison Automotive Limited
The UK government has launched a formal review of what drivers pay to charge electric vehicles on the public network, with recommendations expected to bring prices down.
The Department for Transport has begun a formal review of the cost of charging electric vehicles on the UK's public charging network, with the stated aim of producing recommendations that would reduce what drivers pay at public charge points.
For anyone who drives an EV and relies on public charging rather than a home socket, this matters directly. Public charging has long been more expensive per kilowatt-hour than charging at home, and the gap has caused concern among both existing EV owners and drivers weighing up whether to switch from petrol or diesel.
The review is focused specifically on the public network rather than domestic charging arrangements. It will examine the structure of pricing across public charge points and identify where costs can be brought down, though no specific price targets or timescales for implementation have been set out at this stage.
Drivers are not required to do anything in response to the review at this point. Its findings and any resulting policy changes would be announced through official channels once the work is complete. The review is a government-led process, and any changes that follow would apply across the public charging network as a whole rather than to individual providers.