Edinburgh electric car charging points rise by more than a quarter

The number of public electric vehicle charging points in Edinburgh has risen by more than a quarter over the past year, new figures show.

It comes as Vauxhall, who analysed the data, said more must be done to meet the rising demand for electric cars. Figures from the Department for Transport show there were 330 publicly available electric vehicle charging devices in Edinburgh as of October, including 85 rapid chargers. Overall, it is up 28 per cent from 257 charging devices in October of 2022.

Across the UK, there were nearly 49,220 publicly available chargers as of October – a 42 per cent jump from 2022. Of them, 8,908 were rapid chargers. The figures also show on-street electric vehicle chargers for homes without driveways have increased by 69 per cent in the last 12 months, with 4,094 new installations recorded in the last quarter.

There were also a large rise in electric vehicle charging points in the local authority areas neighbouring Edinburgh. Midlothian saw an 11 per cent rise, East Lothian was up 12 per cent and West Lothian had a 40 per cent increase.

James Taylor, managing director at Vauxhall, said: "It’s a good signal, but we’re still at the beginning of the journey. We need to up the pace if we’re to make sure the 40 per cent of households without driveways are not left behind in the transition to electric vehicles and do more outside of London."

He added: "The 4,094 new installations is a start, but next year it is forecast there will be hundreds of thousands more new EV cars being registered to comply with the Vehicles Emissions Trading Scheme – we are making progress, but more is needed to match demand."

The availability of chargers varied across the UK, with the highest in London where there were 193 chargers per 100,000 people. On the other end of the scale, Northern Ireland had just 23 per 100,000 people. In Scotland, there were 77 electric vehicle chargers per 100,000 people.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "We’ve put more than £2 billion into helping people switch to electric vehicles, and in October one in four new cars bought came with a plug."

They added: "The number of public charge points has increased by 42 per cent since this time last year, and we've allocated £381 million across every area in England to deliver tens of thousands more local chargers – particularly helping drivers without access to off-street parking."