The UK’s competition authority has called for the government to intervene in the electric car charger market to prevent “charging deserts” and increase availability in locations outside London, which remain underserved.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also said it had opened an investigation into the dominance of one provider, Electric Highway, in the fast-charging network at motorway service stations.
Electric cars are a crucial part of the UK’s plan to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as part of its effort to alleviate the climate crisis, and the government announced in 2020 that sales of new petrol and diesel cars would be banned by 2030.
However, the industry has long argued that much more public investment is needed to solve a chicken and egg problem: some consumers are put off from buying an electric car because of poor charger availability but charger companies are unwilling to invest until enough consumers have bought them.
Forecasts cited by the CMA suggest the public charger network needs to expand by at least 10 times by 2030, from the current…
