EV charging: It’s time to get innovative
Do you want the good, bad, or really bad news about electric vehicles (EVs)?
The good news is that the number of EVs on UK roads is soaring. The bad news is that there’s not enough chargers to sustain that growth. And the really bad news is the growing regional divide – 17 chargers per 100,000 people in Greater Manchester versus 102 per 100,000 in London.
In August, the Government announced a scheme that will see more than 1,000 new charging points installed across the UK. But that’s still not enough. What we need is innovation to bring additional EV charging capacity to the UK:
- Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G): Energy stored in the vehicle’s battery is exported to the grid when demand is high. EV drivers become ‘prosumers’ (consumers and providers of electricity) and could save an average of £725 per year.
- Wireless charging: Electricity from a magnetic coil in a charging pad is transferred to another coil fitted to the car. Charging pad trials are already taking place in the UK – including wireless charging pads used by electric taxis in Nottinghamshire.
- Ultra-fast charging: Charging an EV takes much longer than filling the tank of a petrol or diesel car. However, ultra-fast charging options seen in the Kia Ev6 and Hyundai IONIQ 5, for example, can add 60 miles of range with just five minutes of charging.
- Pop-up chargers: Avoiding pavements cluttered with charging points, ‘flat and flush’ charge points being trialled in the capital sit flush with pavements and have no permanent raised structure.