2025 EV Infrastructure Summit: Key takeaways
I was really pleased to attend City & Financial Global’s EV Infrastructure Summit hosted by KPMG earlier this week. The Summit heard from a huge range of speakers, ranging from Charge Point Operators (CPOs), local and central Government as well as speakers from the investment community, SME and fleet industry representatives.
It was great to hear about and discuss the current status of the UK’s rollout of EV charging infrastructure, the forecast for CPOs and the next steps for implementing fleet charging. I’ve picked out some of my main takeaways from a day of thought-provoking speeches and conversations.
The good…
- Red Tape – The Labour Govt does seem committed to removing regulatory red tape in this area – see recent removal of requirements to obtain planning permission for most public and private EV chargers and substations at EV charging hubs (NB: next step needs to be removing/relaxing restrictions on EV charging hub signage on highways).
- 2030 Target – Delivery of EV chargers is on track for the 300,000 target by 2030 (but not in the locations/specifications that we’ll need as yet)
- LEVI Fund – Implementation of the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund very well received so far, we should see the results of this over the next year or two
- Happy Drivers – Satisfaction rates are very high among drivers who have switched from ICE to ZEVs (c.93% would not go back)
- Build it and they will come – Gridserve reported that since opening their ground-breaking hub site in Braintree in 2020, they are seeing higher than national average numbers of ZEV drivers in the area. Hopefully showing that infrastructure can lead to consumer demand, not vice versa
- Consumer concerns – Most of the consumer concerns of a few years back (vehicle choice, range, charger numbers and uptime, price) have all now been largely resolved
The not so good…
- Grid Connections – As ever…. Grid connections remain a critical issue (although NESO reforms should help in due course)
- Borrowing costs – The cost of capital remains high, which poses a challenge for fleet operators switching to ZEV
- Regulatory Uncertainty – softening of the ZEV mandate may have helped car manufacturers, the loss of regulatory certainty has impacted on investment. It has also been viewed as a lost opportunity to move a cohort of ICE drivers onto ZEVs, who may now opt for hybrid instead
- Power costs – Cost of electricity is too high (re: standing charges and VAT – Govt reform of VAT on public charging is a must)
- Fleet issues – local authorities have not engaged enough with the fleet community and too many charging sits remain unsuitable for fleet users (vans as well as e-HGVs). Cross-pavement charging solutions will soon become a necessity (major pillar of UK industry is van drivers who take vans home and who might not have access to off-street parking
- Safety – alarming stats from ChargeSafe about the proliferation of assaults, particularly against women, in poorly lit charging locations without CCTV – a looming crisis
- Accessibility – a large proportion of charging spaces (c.60%) remain unsuitable for disabled users (despite introduction of the BSI PAS1899 standards)
- CPO Market – Consolidation of CPO market is coming (current number of CPOs (c.166) is unsustainable)
- Reliability – Reliability and connectivity issues with some EV chargers is still a common issue and is hindering consumer confidence
Looking forward…
- CPO as an investable asset class:
- We also heard from CPOs and speakers from Local and Central Government about changes needed to commercial terms in CPO leases to help stabilise this as an investable asset class.
- CPOs to push for longer lease terms (at least 15 years ideally) and fixed rents (rather than profit shares).
- The LEVI Fund has also produced a template heads of terms which seek to standardise approaches and strike better balance between local authorities and CPOs
- E-Freight:
- As ever, e-freight remains a hot topic at these events despite relatively low numbers of vehicles on the ground
- Greater Govt incentives are needed – contrast with approach in EU. Particular focus should be on helping SMEs transition
- Useful insights to be obtained from the journey to electrification for buses
- Experience of charger sharing between buses and e-HGVs at depots provides a useful case study for how we should be viewing EV infrastructure in future – i.e. a pragmatic view of demand windows. Buses charge overnight to operate during the day and e-HGVs vice versa
- A pause for thought…
- Theo Panayi from Arcadis held a thought provoking talk towards the end of the day, drawing comparisons with petrol/diesel filling stations, which closed in large numbers as ICE vehicles’ range increased.
- As Theo explains, history has repeatedly shown us that technology can progress in unexpected ways, rendering substantial tech/infrastructure investments redundant – who still uses their home phone or CD/DVD player?
- Given the amount of capital that will need to go into the ground to deliver 300,000 chargers by 2030 (Theo speculated well over £3bn), we might all pause to consider if EVCPs could become the Big Red Phone Box of the 21st century
