Vauxhall and traffic specialists Cenex report that on-street electric vehicle charging in neighborhoods is outpacing current demand. The partnership’s research shows charging infrastructure has accelerated beyond immediate needs.
However, the UK still requires an additional 110,000 chargers over the next five years to maintain adequate coverage as electric vehicle adoption grows.
The research found that 22.9% of UK households now live within a four-minute walk of a charger. That’s up from 19.6% in 2024 – representing 300,000 additional households with easy access to charging.
According to Vauxhall and Cenex, this puts supply roughly a year and a half ahead of current demand.
Local Authority Progress
More councils are prioritizing charging infrastructure. The proportion of authorities with dedicated EV infrastructure policy officers jumped from 31% in 2023 to 51% in 2025.
Twenty-nine local authorities in Great Britain already meet projected 2030 demand levels. That represents just 8% of required national coverage, but some individual council areas improved coverage by up to 39% year-over-year.
The data reveals persistent geographic imbalances. London maintains concentrated coverage while 243 councils across Great Britain show low charger availability relative to local EV numbers.
Rural areas remain particularly underserved.
Installation Rates Lag Behind Need
Infrastructure deployment hasn’t kept pace over the past year. Only two-thirds of required additional charging points were installed in the last 12 months to match electric vehicle growth.
The research estimates 110,000 additional near-home chargers need strategic placement to meet 2030 projected demand.
Government funding offers hope for accelerated installations. England’s LEVI Fund and Scotland’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund expect to deploy at least 106,000 residential area chargers combined.
The report supports Vauxhall’s Electric Streets of Britain campaign, where drivers identify streets needing charging infrastructure. The initiative has registered over 12,500 streets requiring residential charging since launching in 2023.
“The country has made great strides in growing its electric vehicle infrastructure since Electric Streets of Britain launched in 2023,” said Steve Catlin, Vauxhall’s managing director. “Not only have we seen a huge rise in the number of public chargers, but more importantly their installation is increasingly being deployed tactically for drivers who need them on a local level.”
Catlin emphasized that while council policy officer increases are encouraging, the 12,500 street registrations show no simple solution exists for drivers’ charging needs.
“It has been a year since we collaborated with Vauxhall to put forward better metrics to measure the delivery of public EV infrastructure,” added Robert Evans, Cenex CEO. “Using these more relevant, actionable, scalable and measurable metrics, it is great to see the progress made in the last 12 months and assess at a granular level whether current public and private plans are helping meet the needs of residents and drivers.”
The research suggests that while near-home charging availability has improved significantly, coordinated deployment remains essential to serve areas with growing electric vehicle adoption.
