Tackling the higher costs faced by drivers who rely on public charging will be crucial to making EV ownership accessible, affordable and attractive for everyone, writes Jonathan Murray, Acting Managing Director, Zemo Partnership

The latest EV sales figures suggest that the uncertainty caused by the Middle East crisis may be encouraging more buyers to make the switch while also pointing to a rapidly maturing UK market.

There are still significant challenges, though, and one of the big ones is the cost of public charging for those who can’t charge at home or at their workplace.

The Government has just published the terms of reference for the cost of EV public charging review, chaired by Philip New (former Chair of the Zemo-convened Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce which set out some of the charging network fundamentals between 2018 and 2022). The review will examine the costs of charging electric cars and vans on the UK public chargepoint network, how charging costs have changed in recent years, and how they could evolve in the future without intervention. It will ultimately propose recommendations for reducing EV public charging costs.

While tax costs will be reflected within the report, the review will not make recommendations on tax policy changes, meaning that equalisation of VAT applied at home and public chargepoints, a change called for by Zemo and many other organisations, is unlikely to feature amongst its recommendations. The review will, however, look at the costs of charging across the entire public network, including lower powered on-street charging, destination and higher powered en-route charging. 
Fleet operators should note that the review will “consider the impacts of possible options on the costs for EV fleet operators that charge at private depots”.

Even if tax options are excluded, the review is still a step in the right direction. Addressing the divide between those with and without access to low cost domestic and off-peak charging is critical to making the transition as inclusive as possible.

The review will surely please EVA England which represents electric vehicle drivers and launched a new policy paper last week at a Westminster event attended by Zemo colleagues. One of the three key asks of EVA’s paper (‘Building an EV transition which works for everyone’) is the delivery of a plan for supporting households without access to private charging. EVA England would like to see the  structural reform which will bring down standing charges, remove policy levies and incentivise dynamic pricing – Something Zemo also called for in our ‘Delivery Roadmap’ published in December 2024.

The Cost of Charging Review is just one of a number of policy initiatives which aim to bear down on the cost of electricity delivered to end-users and enable the benefits of more abundant, cheap renewables to be felt by consumers. The Government recently announced a commitment to de-couple the price of electricity from that of gas; a situation which has been keeping the price artificially high and delivering significant windfall gains to generators. (Another policy change that Zemo has advocated!)

There was an interesting proposal this week from think-tank Common Wealth which suggests that the Government could become the “single buyer” of power before it is resold to consumers. Such an approach, it says, could shave billions of pounds from electricity prices.

There are positive indications that electricity prices are likely to fall in future, giving further reason for vehicle buyers and operators to embrace EVs, particularly given the volatility of conventional fuel prices.

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