For the first time since the first petrol pump opened, charging points for electric vehicles are more numerous, outnumbering them by over a thousand. Meanwhile, electric car sales continue to grow.
A historic overtaking in the home of the industrial revolution built on fossil fuels. Charging points for electric cars have overtaken filling stations by around 1,000 units since the first petrol pump was inaugurated in November 1919 in Aldermaston, Berkshire. Today there are a total of 9,300 charging stations for electric vehicles, compared with 8,400 service stations offering customers diesel and petrol.
The figures were released by Nissan, which recently compiled the data and has been present in the British market since 2011 with the first version of the Leaf. The overtaking happened a year earlier than the Japanese group had forecast in 2016, when it predicted the milestone would be reached in 2020. "Many consumers say their next car will be electric", says Kalyana Sivagnanam, managing director of Nissan Motor. "The industry must therefore be able to meet their needs, both through the vehicle itself – range, on-board technology – and in how it interacts with the world around it, namely charging and convenience."
A reversal of fortunes that has seen a dramatic collapse in "traditional" filling stations: since 1970, almost 80 per cent of petrol stations in the United Kingdom have closed. Although the causes certainly cannot be attributed solely to the arrival of electric vehicles on the market. The numbers nonetheless tell the story of a genuine escalation in charging points: from just over a hundred in 2011 to more than 9,000 in eight years.
Of these stations, more than 1,600 offer rapid charging, which allows the battery to be charged to 80 per cent in under an hour. According to Zap-Map, two new rapid charging points were installed every day last month, and almost all motorway service areas in the UK now have charging stations, most of them with rapid charging.
"We have moved past the early concerns about electric vehicles, going beyond most customers' everyday driving habits", Sivagnanam continues. "The next challenge is to have a charging infrastructure capable of keeping pace with the number of electric vehicles on the road, and to ensure that the charging experience is as pleasant and simple as driving electric."
Evidently the market and supply are adapting. And developments such as the introduction of the new Ultra-Low Emission Zone in London last April have certainly led more London drivers to seek zero-emission solutions for their transport needs, including commercial ones.
That may partly explain why electric car sales across the British Isles have risen by 158 per cent in just one year, with 2,271 new battery electric vehicles registered across the country last August. The data come from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (Smmt) and show that 70.6 per cent more electric cars have been sold so far in 2019 compared with the same point last year. Despite this, the market is still dominated by petrol and diesel vehicles, though these are in sharp decline, falling by 3.5 per cent over the same period. The shift in direction has clearly begun, in the very country that made coal its industrial creed.