£1bn electric car fund ‘has not built a single charger’
Fri, 07 Feb 2025
A flagship £1bn government policy to boost the number of ultra-fast electric car charging points has not built a single EV charger almost five years after being announced.
The £950m Rapid Charging Fund would, claimed former PM Rishi Sunak, accelerate a significant expansion of superfast chargers on UK motorways.
The Department for Transport used the fund as the basis for its ‘Project Rapid’ initiative. This would see 2500 ultra rapid chargers installed by 2030.
Ahead of this, the fund promised at least six ultra rapid chargers at every motorway service station by the end of 2023.
In reality, just 62% had reached this target by summer 2024.
The Telegraph now reveals that "not a penny" of the fund has been deployed and not a single charger has been built with its backing.
This is because the fund remains in limbo due to a series of reviews and consultations.
Bureaucracy
The Rapid Charging Fund has seen numerous hurdles since being announced in 2020. 10 sites were proposed for a £70m trial saw – but an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority raised concerns of distorted competition.
The pilot was finally announced in 2023 – but then had to go to consultation.
Since the election, there have been no updates on the fund, despite Labour pledging it would "release funding as soon as possible".
Motorway service station operator Roadchef told the public accounts committee that applying for funds was "onerous" and that unreasonable commercial conditions were imposed.
Charge point operators are now blaming bureaucracy and slow grid connections, rather than a lack of cash, for the UK’s slow roll-out of EV chargers.
Charging deserts
The National Audit Office has also found that 44% of all UK public charge points are located in London and the South East – with only 15% in rural areas.
Such ‘charging deserts’, which the fund was meant to overcome, risk putting off drivers making the switch to electric.
DfT permanent secretary Jo Shanmugalingam has since told MPs that changes to how the grid is being upgraded mean the fund’s original design will have to be scrapped, reports the Telegraph.
"It is a very different landscape, which is why the original conception of how it is going to work is probably not how it is going to work in the future," he says.
