- The UK capital of London is seeing public EV charging infrastructure grow at an impressive rate, with Transport for London (TfL)’s latest electric vehicle infrastructure strategy report showing that the city has now reached over 25,500 public charge points.
- It’s a significant increase on TfL’s December 2021 EV report, which then measured just 9,000 public charge points across the city.
- The past few years have also seen a significant increase in ultra-rapid chargers and rapid/ultra-rapid charging hubs in London, helping to support the fastest charging electric cars on the market.
London’s EV charging infrastructure continues to grow rapidly
Following the latest report, TfL has also updated its forecasts for the future levels of charging infrastructure in the capital, a level that will need to be met to address the rising number of EV drivers. By 2030, TfL estimates a need for 43,000-51,000 public chargers, essentially representing a doubling over current figures – with 3,500 of those needing to be higher power chargers. By 2035, those targets become even more ambitious, recommending somewhere between 69,000 and 79,000 total chargers, with 4,300 of those being high power.
The high proportion of this public charging being ‘slow’ chargers is a reflection on London’s lack of off-street residential parking, with EV owners in London highly likely to rely on slow, overnight-based public charging through CPOs such as ubitricity and char.gy – although cross-pavement charging solutions are also helping to address this issue. The strong public charger growth already seen, and the ambitious future targets, also reflect London’s EV adoption rate being higher than the national average – with approximately 33% of cars registered in London in 2024 being plug-in, compared to 27.5% on a national level.
TfL’s new report has made several new commitments and strategies surrounding public charging, in the hope to drive EV ownership forward further in the capital, with the results of this research set to be published across 2026. TfL is undertaking research on how to make public charging both more affordable and more accessible for those with disabilities. It also notes that EV charging locations for commercial vehicles in particular has been a challenge, with TfL now identifying key routes where charging infrastructure for electric trucks, buses, and coaches could be implemented. Shared charging infrastructure, which we have already seen examples of elsewhere in the UK, will also be explored as a route.
