Now is the time to double-down on progress towards electric vehicles rather than second-guessing growth, as the chief executive of Shane Brennan from ChargeUK explains.
The electric vehicle transition has been a success so far. Ten years ago, mass electric transport felt like a niche pursuit for eccentrics and idealists. Then industry, government and much of the public came together and agreed that it could be done. We have made great progress; a real transition is within reach. Now is the time to double down, not to second-guess ourselves.
UK battery electric vehicle sales hitting 100,000 in a month shows the transition can be achieved, but not that it will be. The next two to three years are critical: they are the window in which today’s momentum can become self-sustaining. That is why the government’s response to the public charging review, and its wider position on the EV transition, is so disappointing.
The review followed ChargeUK’s September 2025 report, ‘Delivering Affordable Charging For All’, which set out the twin problems of rising charge point costs and rising public charging prices. The government committed to the review in the November 2025 Budget.
Since then, the charging industry and EV driver groups have been united in calling for action — not only for affordable public charging, but on how to deliver it. That unity exists because operator costs and driver prices are inextricable. In a pre-profit sector such as ours, input costs feed directly into what the customer pays. Affordability cannot be fixed without addressing the fundamentals.
We have set those out at every opportunity: surging energy costs, driven mainly by UK-specific regulatory changes to network charges; the exclusion of EV charging from the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation; and the VAT gap between home and public charging.
This week’s Budget was published alongside the review and commits to the first two of its recommendations.
VAT and the ‘driveway divide’
At the same moment, the Treasury closed the door on the long-running campaign for VAT fairness, the totemic issue in public charging affordability. This autumn the government cut VAT on home electricity to zero. Drivers using the public network still pay 20 per cent. The driveway divide is now wider than it was.
VAT was never in the review’s scope, but the timing could not have sent a worse signal, and it overshadows the report’s positives. A clear structural unfairness has been dismissed, when addressing it, even temporarily as with home electricity, would have brought home and public prices closer and show that the government is serious about the transition.
Tariff porting
The review’s alternative for narrowing the gap is to explore letting drivers port their home tariffs onto the public network. The press statement promises households a £150 average annual saving, but the review itself makes the complexities clear. Home electricity prices will likely only be accessible only if drivers pay a rental or gateway fee to use one local street charger, or a group of them.
Press statements always simplify, but implying that it will be easy, or even possible, to pay home prices on the public network is unhelpful. It feeds a perception that the operators are making public charging prices artificially high.
The government estimates that tariff porting will take at least two years of scheme design and piloting. Even if a workable design is found, it will not deliver relief in the critical next two years.
£100m fund for local, low-powered charging
To bridge that gap, the Budget commits £100 million (£50m in 2027 and £50m in 2028) to cut costs for drivers using the existing urban, lower-powered (AC) charging network. This is well-intentioned, and the logic follows.
We have an idea to explore (tariff porting); we can’t get there quickly, so we will bridge the gap.
But the scheme proposed is questionable. Local, lower-powered on-street charging already offers lower prices than other parts of the public network, and savings on petrol and diesel. The pressure is greatest on rapid and ultra-rapid charging, which is part of almost every EV driver’s charging mix and the only option for those with neither home charging nor a nearby on-street charger.
Support for on-street charging is welcome, and drivers without driveways need it. But by subsidising only one part of the network, the fund leaves the sharpest price pressure untouched. And, like tariff porting, it does nothing about the underlying costs, which are in crisis right now.
An energy cost emergency
The Budget said the right things about the impact of high electricity costs on the wider economy. Shifting from a ‘clean energy mission’ to a ‘cheap energy mission’ is the right course. So is the intent to delink gas and electricity prices, to move away from regressive standing charges on bills and to tackle slow, expensive and bureaucratic grid build-out.
To its credit, the review reckons with the operators’ rising costs. ChargeUK members worked with Chair and report author Philip New and the OZEV team to provide insight and data, and the report reflects the issues accurately.
The problem is that its recommendations fall short of meeting that challenge. Network charges are referred to Ofgem, with change estimated to take two to four years. The report recommends a sister scheme to the RTFO something we strongly support, but it is unclear whether or when the government will commit to it. And it suggests extending support for battery storage, increasing utilisation through better signage and price transparency, all measures the industry continues to pursue.
EV adoption slowdown
Finally, the review rightly notes that any slowdown in EV adoption will push up driver prices. That is why it is so concerning the government is considering exactly the change that would cause one, weakening the ZEV mandate targets. Lower utilisation while operator costs are rising means higher prices at the charge point. That would undercut this entire exercise, including the £100 million fund.
I do not doubt that this government wants the transition to happen. But we are very concerned that each tactical choice is weakening the overall strategic direction, undermining confidence and putting the transition at risk.
So what would help? Four things, all within the government’s reach: committing to the RTFO sister scheme the review recommends; giving Ofgem a clear instruction to specifically address public charging costs this year; extending support beyond local charging to the rapid and ultra-rapid network; and holding firm on the ZEV mandate.
No one pretends these choices are easy, especially the fiscal ones. But the next two to three years will secure or slow the EV transition. We asked for interventions to relieve the pressure now and keep the transition on track. What has been announced is too limited, too slow and too complex to meet the moment.
Shane Brennan is chief executive of ChargeUK
