South East ranked as UK’s most popular EV home charging region

Residents from the South East of England are top of the EV home charging leagues according to data from Smart Home Charge.

Enquiries and installations for home EV charging points have skyrocketed in recent years, but it is the South East that has charged to the top of the home charging league tables. Smart Home Charge installed over 1,400 charge points in the South East, confirming it as the most popular region for home charging between July 2020 and June 2022.

As the number of vehicles owned by residents of the South East increases to 1.46* cars per household – the highest of any UK region – the area also becomes the most popular location for the installation of home chargers. With a total of 1,438 confirmed installations between July 2020 and June 2022, the South East edges the Midlands, the runner-up, by 2.8 per cent.

However, the Midlands is rapidly catching up with the most installations in 2022 so far with 446 home charge points installed versus 431 for the South East. The Midlands also sees the most enquiries for home chargers of any UK regions, with more than 5,200 since July 2020. A deciding factor and uplift for this could be Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone, which was introduced on June 1, 2021 as the city’s answer to ever-growing pollution levels. Aimed at improving air quality as soon as possible, in particular by discouraging the most polluting vehicles from entering the zone, Birmingham is one of the key areas of the Midlands.

Danny Morgan, Editor at Smart Home Charge, said: “It’s no surprise to see EV home charger enquiries and installations increasing as the electric car ball is well and truly rolling and home charging is the most convenient method of refuelling an EV. However, it’s encouraging to see demand is not restricted to just London and the South East, with the Midlands, the North of England, and Scotland seeing healthy home charge point installation numbers.

“East Anglia and Wales are lagging behind in terms of enquiries and installations, which may be due to their more rural road network, so more work is needed to help convince drivers of the viability of electric cars here.

“While this will undoubtedly include an expansion of the public charging infrastructure, home charging can form a huge piece of the puzzle too thanks to shared use platforms such as Co Charger.”

Smart Home Charge also notes that home and workplace charge points total over 400,000, dwarfing the 32,663 public charging devices installed in the UK, as of June 2022.

The research also included hit-lists of popular home charging units during this period (July 2020 and June 2022). The most popular home charge point according to the UK home charging retailer and installer is the Wallbox Pulsar Plus. However, despite this, it’s set to be overtaken by Norwegian newcomer the Easee One, which is leading the installation charts so far in 2022.

Joel Teague, CEO of home charger sharing platform Co Charger, said: “It’s great we’re seeing home charge point installations continue to rise, but it’s also an opportunity for those home charge points to be shared with those who cannot have one installed. Many people who can’t have a home charger installed aren’t switching to EVs because public chargers don’t give the same dependability, convenience and cost benefits needed for them to take the leap to electric.

“Fortunately, the 400,000 or so private charge points are rarely used for more than five per cent of the time. By enabling the sharing of these under-utilised assets as community chargers Co Charger is delivering exactly the kind of ‘base’ charging option needed to get everyone out of fossil fuel cars.”