EV drivers in UK are using ultra-rapid charging more often

A new survey of electric vehicle (EV) drivers in the United Kingdom published this week by Zap-Map, the UK’s leading app and digital platform for EV drivers, has discovered the increasing number of rapid and ultra-rapid chargers are being put to good use by British EV drivers.

Zap-Map’s EV Charging Survey of more than 3,000 EV drivers has uncovered a number of new trends in charging behaviour – most notably in the area of high-powered, ‘en route’ charging, as well as the increasing popularity of charging hubs.

According to the survey, 93% of EV drivers continue to use the UK’s public charging networks, with 40% using public chargers at least once a week.

However, the survey also found that there has been an uptick in both the installation and use of ultra-rapid chargers throughout 2021.

Specifically, while rapid chargers (25kW to 99kW) chargers are still used by the most UK EV drivers, the survey revealed that the usage of ultra-rapid chargers (100Kw+) had jumped to 27% of EV drivers, up from only 16% in the previous survey.

The growth in the use of ultra-rapid chargers is obviously being driven by a parallel increase in the number of ultra-rapid chargers available, with the number of ultra-rapid chargers growing by 60% in 2021.

Further good news is the fact that the new ultra-rapid devices are fulfilling demand from EV drivers travelling longer distances.

However, while charging hubs saw the biggest growth in usage, supermarkets and motorway service areas nevertheless remained the most popular charging locations, with 52% and 50% of respondents respectively saying that they used these types of charging locations.

“As the number of EV drivers on the road approaches half a million, a robust charging infrastructure is essential, and the public charging network is growing and developing to meet these changing needs,” said Melanie Shufflebotham, Zap-Map co-founder & COO.

“This new survey shows that the 60% growth in high-speed ultra-rapid chargers and the installation of charging hubs across the UK in 2021 are being used by an increasing proportion of EV drivers.

“We know that EV charging use cases are diverse, as the survey makes clear, and we absolutely need a range of charge speeds to match them.

” However, amongst other considerations, the demand for high-powered chargers revealed in this report indicates that ultra-rapid chargers and charging hubs continue to be a crucial area of investment – for the simple fact that they make long journeys easier.”