Scottish drivers flock to rapid charging
Research has found that drivers of electric vehicles in Scotland prefer rapid charging, with many standard charging points not used at all.
The number of electric vehicles in Scotland has nearly doubled in the past year, while the use of electric car charging points has more than doubled.
Chargers were used 26,119 times during August, up from 12,939 in August 2015 and nine times the usage in August 2014, according to ChargePlace Scotland. It also found that many standard charge points were not used at all (a quarter weren’t used once during August) with drivers favouring rapid charge points instead.
There are 870 public and commercial charging points in the ChargePlace Scotland network. The majority of public charge points will fully charge most electric vehicles in between four and eight hours. Rapid chargers – which make up 18% of the charging total – can charge cars up to 80% in half-an-hour.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said, ‘They say that when it comes to buying a house, location, location, location is everything. So it goes with electric charge points. Facilities need to be in places where people will use them.
‘But there’s something more. The evidence suggests that it is rapid chargers that are getting a disproportionate amount of use, which bears out the view that improving the convenience and speed of ‘filling’ up with electricity is mission critical to the wider take-up of these vehicles.’
Meanwhile, figures show there are now 3,575 electric vehicles licensed in Scotland, up from 2,050 the previous year.
