April 8, 2022
Abby Nuttall
British Petroleum (BP) have announced new plans to invest £1 billion in electric vehicle (EV) charging across the UK.
These plans will help improve the existing charging infrastructure by installing more fast and convenient chargers around the country in order to help with the rapidly rising demand for EV chargers.
The investment will be made by BP Pulse, the company’s EV charging business, over the next decade. The company have also advised they expect this investment to help support the creation of hundreds of new jobs with the work needed to build, install and maintain their charging devices.
The investment will be used in three key areas, to:
- Install rapid and ultra-fast chargers, the two highest speeds of charging available in the UK, across key locations
- Expand fleet products and services
- Launch new home charge digital products and services
- Improve reliability on existing infrastructure
With an investment of this size BP Pulse will approximately triple the number of public charging points they currently have in their network, as well as speed up the installation of their 300kW and 150kW ultra-fast chargers that can give compatible vehicles 100 miles in around 10 minutes.
BP is already the most used public charging network in the UK with their chargers available at their fuel and service stations across England, Scotland and Wales and being the supplier of many home and business units as well including Royal Mail, Uber and some emergency services in London and Scotland and this expansion will continue to keep them as one of the leading EV charger suppliers in the coming years.
This announcement comes as great news to those worried about the pace at which the UK’s EV charging infrastructure is developing would not be fast enough to support new EV drivers. There has been a lot of concern over the speed of chargers available and whether the number of chargers and the speed that they provide would be sufficient to support the high demand as EV drivers grow, especially at locations such as motorway service stations and BP’s announcement will help to alleviate some of this concern.
What Are Ultra-Fast Chargers?
Ultra-fast, or rapid, chargers are the highest speed of chargers available in the UK and can provide over 350kW an hour to vehicles capable of receiving that speed of charge.
These chargers are becoming more common, especially at service stations as they charge in the least time possible so drivers can get back on the road as quickly as possible which is why many new chargers that are being installed are fast or ultra-fast ones.
You’ll find that most home and work place chargers will be either slow (capable of around 3kW of power) or fast (between 7 and 50 kW) as the cars will usually be parked at these locations for a few hours so rapid charging is not needed.
For more information on EVs including their chargers click here or if you’re a driver wanting to learn more then head to our dedicated driver EV guides.