The number of electric vehicle owners in the UK continues to increase. Each owner should be aware of how much range they have on your left on their car before they head out. Even then, there are more EV chargers available. The numbers of charging points in the country have increased by 35 percent between March 2022 and March 2023.
However, there is one concern – damaged or malfunctioning chargers. This can occur when charging points suffer from software and mechanical issues or Internet outage. An inability to connect to the Internet causes several issues. Most chargers require Internet access to handle credit card, contactless and app payments. If the wireless signal fails and charger is unable to take payment, drivers are unable to charge their car. In addition, service providers need connectivity for carrying out remote diagnostics and estimating demand on the grid.
The UK government has identified the importance of maintaining and managing EV infrastructure, citing a minimum of 99 percent reliability across charging points. However, the reality shows that this goal is far from achievable in the short term.
This is becoming a significant issue for EV drivers – broken chargers are rife, causing widespread anxiety. Looking into this issue is the connectivity firm Trench Networks, who have identified something they are calling ‘charge anxiety’.
A Volkswagen study suggests that charge anxiety has replaced range anxiety altogether – in the form of fears that “current public charging infrastructure is not widespread, accessible or reliable enough to alleviate driver uncertainties.”
Chargers from certain Charging Point Operators (CPOs) are more likely to fail, with certain brands being identified by EV drivers as unreliable. There are also geographical pockets where chargers are less reliable. For instance, Derry, Northern Ireland has up to 30 percent of its EV chargers rated as unreliable.
Worcester, Ipswich, Newcastle and York round off the top five cities with the worst-functioning EV infrastructure. Overall, rural areas are most affected by charging failures due to the lack of available back-ups.
EV drivers have identified the unreliability of the charging infrastructure as a serious issue, though it’s unclear exactly what percentage of EV chargers can be relied upon to function properly. In 2021, Channel 4’s show Dispatches found that more than 1300 of the country’s chargers (5.2 percent) were unusable.
Going forwards, and to help facilitate EV adoption, chargers must be resilient enough to work at all times in order to meet the 99 percent uptime target. By implementing a more robust Internet connection, this could represent the first step to ensure EV users can be confident in making to move the electric vehicle ownership.
