- It had become more difficult to find public charging points that were working and available.
- The councils spend about £2.8m on electricity to provide free charging.
In the past six weeks, the state of the 2,200 EV chargers installed using Scottish government grants uncovered issues at 535 units with faults ranging from broken plugs and screens to the system being offline. There are still only about 50,000 electric vehicles (EVs), representing just 2% of the cars on Scotland’s roads. However, by 2030 new petrol and diesel cars will be banned and It is forecasted to reach a million EVs in Scotland which will all need somewhere to charge.
Laura Young, An environmentalist who has fronted Scottish government campaigns on sustainability and has been driving an EV for over three years during the BBC Disclosure programme “Electric Cars – Ready for the Charge?”, reported that it had become more difficult to find public charging points that were working and available. She said, “Now it’s definitely more of a struggle. There’s less available because more electric cars are putting pressure on them.” she added that the crumbling public charging infrastructure had made her consider whether she would “pack this in” and go back to fossil fuel cars.
Laura’s experience is echoed by many electric vehicle drivers who feel that the publicly-funded charging network is falling apart. Transport minister Jenny Gilruth said: “I do have confidence (in our data), but I think I want to interrogate some of what you’ve told me further with ChargePlace Scotland and with my officials in Transport Scotland to ensure that we are delivering on that expectation, in terms of reliability because I recognise that’s key.” About half of Scotland’s councils still offer to charge for free, which tends to leave charge points more congested than in areas where tariffs are applied. The councils spend about £2.8m on electricity to provide free charging. Free charging is a now-abandoned Scottish government policy to encourage more drivers to switch. The transport minister mentioned that it was the right policy at the time and she wouldn’t rule out stepping in to force councils into introducing tariffs.