If you live in a terraced house, flat, or your business has limited or no private car parking, it’s very difficult to find somewhere to power up an EV. The government wants to reintroduce the phasing out of new fossil-fuel cars by 2030, but at present there are only 65,000 public electric-vehicle charging points. That’s just one for every 600 of the 40 million registered lorries, cars, vans and other vehicles in the UK. The authorities want to increase this to 300,000 but that’s not going to be enough. SMEs and other organisations have a big role to play in making sure we increase this figure massively – and soon.

Lobby government and local authorities

Press your town council for the need for more public charging points in your business district or shopping area. Join with business groups to pressure Westminster to release funds for local authorities to install more chargers. Labour says it will speed up the introduction of the Rapid Charging Fund, worth £950 million, and there is also the £450 million Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund for councils. But much higher amounts are needed, given it costs around £1,500 to install a 22kW charging unit. There also needs to be funding for greater National Grid capacity to cope with the extra demand EV charging will require.

Install your own charging points and open them to the public

If you have the space in your company car park, consider installing a 22kW unit and allowing local residents and other businesses to fully charge their car in less than four hours. You can charge between  55 and 79p per kilowatt hour creating a good stream of extra income and secure payment systems will guard against any misuse.

A charging unit at work will also open the possibility of having an electric car for many of your staff. If they are in the office for eight hours a day, it will be easy for them to keep their vehicle fully powered up, without the need to have a charger at home.

If you operate larger vehicles or have a several delivery trucks, consider installing a DC-power charger, rather than an AC one. These can charge at up to 300kW and are excellent for powering up larger vehicle and fast-charging cars and vans – the chargers in motorway service stations are often DC. They can cost £30,000 but a project in which Oxfordshire and Suffolk county council are participating is pursuing the idea of businesses sharing their chargers with others, in return for using some of their facilities. This could work well for a SMEs working together locally.

The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) provides up to three quarters of the cost of installing up to 40 sockets. It is capped at £350 per socket and the complimentary Infrastructure Grant is limited to £500 per car parking space. This, again, is something SMEs need to lobby government to improve. But, if you can find a way to cover the additional cost of installation, perhaps by charging the public to use it or by recognising it as a great perk for staff, it’s a very worthwhile thing to invest in.

The planned phasing out of petrol and diesel cars is just over 5 years away. There needs to be a revolution in public charging if it is to work and SMEs can and should play a massive part in this.

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