Government commits to improve public EV charging experience

The Government has published new regulations for public charge points, including a 99% reliability standard for rapid charge points.

The new rules are outlined in the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023, which can be found on the legislation.gov website.

The Public Charge Point Regulations aim to improve the charging experience for electric vehicle (EV) drivers in four key areas: payments, pricing, data and reliability:

• Government is mandating contactless payments and payment roaming to reduce the number of apps.
• Charge point operators will be required to be transparent about their pricing.
• All public chargers will have to provide charge point information and data including live availability data.
• New regulations include a 99% reliability standard for rapid charge points to build public confidence.

The British Vehicle Rental & Leasing Association (BVRLA) commented that the transition to electric vehicles is crucial to meet net zero targets and the new regulations will play a vital role in boosting confidence in the public charging network.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said, “The announced measures to improve the UK’s EV charging experience will give everyone increased confidence in the network, something that is crucial to driving uptake and reducing emissions. The regulations’ focus on improving reliability, interoperability and pricing transparency is good news as they reflect the main issues people have when recharging.

“The next step should be enabling contactless credit or debit card payments at public chargers below 8kW, which would benefit drivers who rely on on-street and destination chargers.”