WIREDGOV

The drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) are set to benefit from more reliable public charging after MPs approved new laws to improve on-street chargepoints. techUK welcomes this positive step forward, which is critical to improving the user-experience of charging and wider decarbonisation of surface transport. techUK has outlined the main changes below.

Open data requirements

Providers will be required to open their data, so drivers can easily find an available chargepoint that meets their needs. This data will be available to apps for apps, online maps and in-vehicle software via APIs, making it easier for drivers to locate chargepoints, check their charging speeds and determine whether they are working and available for use.

Pricing

Operators must ensure that the total cost of a charging session, including any connection fee, is clearly displayed as pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) on the public charge point or through a separate device. Pricing information should be easy for the consumer to find and must not require a consumer to have to sign up to an app, for example, to view pricing information.

Contactless payment 

All new public charge points 8kW and above deployed and rapid public charge points of 50kW and above deployed must offer contactless payment either per public charge point or per charging site, if more than one public charge point.

Reliability

Perceptions of poor reliability are a key contributing factor to “range anxiety” for EV owners. Under this rules., operators ensure that rapid charge points comply with the requirement to be on average, reliable for 99% of the time during each calendar year. This will be assured through regulator reporting to the Secretary of State for Transport.

Both the Committee on Climate Change and the National Infrastructure Commission have recommended that the government focusses on speeding up the transition to EVs if we are to meet future Carbon Budgets and Net Zero commitments.

In September, the Government decided to push back its ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel engine vehicles to 2035. techUK has been clear that we must not lose ambition around net zero and provide long-term certainty to businesses investing in the UK. This requires clear industrial strategy and roadmaps for securing green-tech investment and decarbonisation pathways across all heavy-emitting sectors.