The Government has missed its target of having six or more rapid or ultra-rapid electric vehicle chargers at every motorway service area in England by the end of 2023, the RAC has said.
The motoring organisation said that just 46 (39%) of 119 motorway services it reviewed on Zapmap now have the target number of chargers above 50kW.
This has grown from just 27 (23%) of motorway services at the end of April, with 178 high-powered chargers installed in the meantime.
There are now more than 400 ultra-rapid chargers at services, which means more than half (55%) can now offer some of the fastest possible charging speeds to drivers.
Only 18 service areas have no rapid charging above 50kW, although four have no publicly accessible charging facilities at all.
RAC EV spokesperson Simon Williams said: ‘It’s clear from our research that the Government has fallen well short of its target.
‘We continue to believe that the wide availability of ultra-rapid charging is crucial in giving both current and future EV drivers confidence to know they can easily make journeys beyond the range of their vehicles in a time-efficient way.’
A Department for Transport (DfT) spokesperson said: ‘As well as our £70m pilot to help roll out ultra-rapid charge points on motorways, we are driving forward the biggest reforms to our electricity grid since the 1950s - halving the time it takes to build networks and speeding up connections.’
The Government’s target of having at least six rapid chargers above 50kW by the end of 2023, with some having more than 12, was set out in its March 2022 Taking charge: the electric vehicle infrastructure strategy.
The DfT planned to accelerate the roll-out of high-powered chargers on the strategic road network through the £950m Rapid Charging Fund, but it was only last month that it announced £70m in grants for a pilot scheme involving upgrades at 10 motorway services.
