Electric boost: EV chargepoints in Wales grow by 25.7% in a year

Figures released in the last week show there are now 3813 chargers on Welsh roads, making it easier than ever for local drivers to charge up and go, and driving forward the confidence people need to go electric. 

• 780 public chargepoints added to Wales’s charging network since October 2024, higher than the national percentage growth 
• There are now 3,813 public chargepoints in the region, giving drivers peace of mind that they can charge up conveniently wherever their journey takes them. 
• Government is backing the EV sector with more than £381m to deliver 100,000 more chargers, boosting British industry, powering up growth and creating jobs to deliver the Plan for Change. 

Overall, the UK’s EV charging network grew by 23% in the last year, bringing over 15,000 more charging devices to motorists on UK roads, enabling people to travel with ease and confidence. 

 A new chargepoint is now being added to the national network every 33 minutes which is great news for drivers who can save by charging up as compared to filling up on petrol. The number also includes over 17,356 rapid/ultra-rapid chargers that can charge a car to 80% in just 20-40 mins. 

The data follows the launch of the £650m Electric Car Grant, which has already helped over 25,000 drivers make the switch with discounts of up to £3,750 on 39 models. 

Minister for Decarbonisation, Keir Mather said:  

 “There’s never been a better time to go electric – chargepoints are up 23% in a year, and we’re helping drivers save with discounts of up to £3,750 on new electric cars — all part of our Plan for Change. 

We’re also cutting red tape so renters and those without driveways can access affordable home charging, making it easier and cheaper for everyone to make the switch.” 

Between October 2024 and October 2025, the number of public EV charging devices in England outside of London grew by 23.4%, compared to 21.7% in London. 

Rapid and ultra-rapid chargers near England’s Strategic Road Network have nearly quadrupled in three years, making charging quicker and easier than ever. 

The data comes after the Government announced it will consult to cut red tape and make it easier for renters and residents without driveways to install home chargers. Plans could see drivers save £250 on planning fees and enable more households to run their car for as little as 2p per mile – that’s £2.50 from London to Birmingham. 

The increase is complemented by the £25m scheme to help councils install cross-pavement channels for people without driveways, and the £381m rollout of 100,000 more public chargepoints across England.

Vicky Read, chief executive, ChargeUK said: 

“The EV charging industry is pulling out all the stops to help drivers go electric, investing billions of private capital into high-quality charging — supporting the government’s ambitions for growth and decarbonisation in the process. 

“The vast majority of EV drivers use the public networks and an increasing number will be wholly reliant on them. Meaning we need the right mix of affordable and easy to access charging at home and at work, on-street, en-route and at destinations to ensure everyone can make the switch.” 

#ChargeUK #decarbonisation #electricCarCharging #EVCharging #WelshGovernment

Two new super-fast EV charging hubs open near Swansea and the M4

Osprey Charging, Wales’ largest open-access rapid EV charging network, has installed eight 300kW chargers at West Swansea Retail Park in Cadle, Fforestfach, just off Junction 47 of the M4 along the A483, and a further eight at the Canolfan Gwili Centre in Hendy, close to Junction 48.

The chargers can typically add around 100 miles of range in 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the vehicle, and are compatible with every electric car on the market. They accept contactless bank cards, Apple and Google Pay, the Osprey app, RFID cards and major third-party payment methods including fleet cards.

Osprey says the new hubs are part of its UK-wide rollout of public charging infrastructure in key locations, helping to support the shift to electric vehicles ahead of the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars. The company now operates six ultra-rapid charging hubs in Wales, with 58 charge points in total.

Ian Johnston, CEO of Osprey Charging, said:

“The roll-out of EV charging facilities is quickly gathering pace and we’re here to provide a reliable and rapid public charging service for all drivers, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. The new charging hubs in the Swansea area form a vital part of the re-charging network that will enable the decarbonisation of transport in the UK.”

Both sites are powered by renewable energy and have a free 24/7 helpline for customers. Osprey funds, operates and maintains the chargers, which are designed to be easy to use and accessible for all drivers.

#Cadle #CanolfanGwiliCentre #electricCarCharging #EVCharging #Fforestfach #Hendy #Junction47 #Junction48 #M4 #OspreyCharging #WestSwanseaRetailPark

Plans for new M4 service station submitted to Bridgend planners

The development would be just to the south of the junction 37 interchange, alongside the A4229.

The proposed drive-through restaurants could include a McDonald’s, Greggs and a Starbucks or Costa, along with seating areas and toilet facilities. These would be in three separate buildings rather than the more integrated services stations seen on other parts of the motorway network.

The development would be accessed by a new road off the A4229.

With regards the proposed new petrol station, planning documents say that “notwithstanding government policy to phase out the sale of new petrol/diesel cars by 2030, there will continue to be demand, albeit reducing, for petrol/diesel sales for a further 15 years or so after that.”

“To cater for future changes, the PFS will have a large number of electric charging stations from the outset, and there is currently a significant under-provision off these along this stretch of the M4.

“The operator also envisages increasing the number of charging points as electric cars become more popular, and in turn reducing the number of petrol pumps, in line with the take up of electric private vehicles by the public.

“Depending on future developments in HGV propulsion, provision for hydrogen tanks to replace diesel in the medium to long term is also feasible.”

Draycott Group, who are behind the plans, recently completed a similar development in St Clears off the A40 trunk road between Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

The St Clears development was initially refused by Carmarthenshire planners, but granted on appeal by Welsh Government planning inspectors.

Initial pre-application discussions with Bridgend County Borough Council on the proposed Pyle development were “negative” according to the latest submission, but the developer pointed out that all of the same arguments that the planning inspector gave for approving the St Clears scheme would also apply to Pyle.

The developers say they are willing to construct a car-sharing or park and ride facility at Junction 37 if the council is willing to run it.

Planning documents say: “During the course of the previous discussions, the developer, in response to comments as to J37 being a car-sharing location, indicated a preparedness to include land either as a car-sharing facility or P&R.

“Moreover, the developer would be prepared to fund/develop such a facility, on the basis that it would then be leased to the Council to operate. It is understood that the proposed P&R facility at Pyle has failed to attract funding, although it remains an objective for the Council.

“Should the Council not be interested in promoting such a facility at this site, or does not feel that it could be successfully operated, then the developer would not propose pursuing the matter alone.”

The proposals will now be decided by Bridgend County Borough Council’s planning department.

#construction #driveThru #electricCarCharging #EVCharging #Junction37 #M4 #petrolStation #Pyle #ServiceStation

On street electric vehicle charging to be trialled in Swansea

Swansea Council, with support from Transport for Wales and Welsh Government, is offering up to ten properties the chance to take part in a trial to test a new on-street charging system.

Currently, electric vehicle owners who live in Swansea but do not have off-street parking, have to make use of charging facilities in public car parks or local supermarket car parks.

The latest trial will look at making it possible for residents charge their vehicles on the street.

The Council is working alongside a company called Kerbo Charge, who have developed an on-street charging solution which involves creating channels in the footway outside people’s homes. Charging cables can then be connected to residents’ homes and be fed into the channel across the pavement without creating a trip hazard.

The maximum number of residents that can take part in the trial is ten and those involved will be monitored over a 12-month period.

Andrea Lewis, Swansea Council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Service Transformation, said: “With the popularity of electric and hybrid vehicles increasing year on year, we know that we need to look at innovative new ways to enable all electric car owners to easily charge their cars.

“For residents that do not have a driveway or off-street parking at their homes, this can be more difficult.

“As a Council, we have installed fast charging points at many of our council-owned car parks and this work will continue.

“In addition to what we’ve achieved at our car parks, we need to look at on-street infrastructure and how we can introduce this for our residents.

“This trial will give us the opportunity to work with residents and Kerbo Charge and test this method of on-street charging.”

#electricCarCharging #EVCharging #motoring #Swansea #SwanseaCouncil

I filed my last copy for this week at 10 p.m. Friday, and then it was a delight to have Saturday be my first legit work-free day since… um, Jan. 1.

1/16/2024: Don’t Engage: ‘Pig Butchering’ Scams Start With a Text, End in Financial Ruin, PCMag

One reason I couldn’t unplug from work last Sunday: I had to watch my friend Sean Gallagher’s very good walkthrough of pig-butchering scams at the ShmooCon information-security conference in D.C. I did, however, opt to watch the livestream of his talk that morning instead of heading over to the Washington Hilton for the third day in a row.

1/17/2024: NextGen TV Airwave Upgrade Flies Under the Radar at CES, PCMag

This CES recap ran several days after the show ended because I needed to verify some Consumer Technology Association forecasts of sales of NextGen-equipped TV sets. And because I needed some uninterrupted time to finish writing the thing.

1/19/2024: Biden Admin OKs $150 Million in Grants to Fix Broken Public EV Chargers, PCMag

I spent Thursday afternoon at the Washington Auto Show’s public-policy day and came away with this update on the Biden administration’s latest efforts to ease electric-car adoption, in which I also noted how the White House’s plan to underwrite a nationwide network of fast chargers on highways has yet to yield much usable hardware. I ended the post by calling out ignorant remarks by two Republican congressmen on a panel that afternoon in which they characterized EVs as some sort of big-government plot.

1/19/2024: Ep 96 SmartTechCheck Podcast CES 2024 Recap, Mark Vena

I joined my industry-analyst friend’s podcast to compare notes about CES with Mark and my fellow tech scribe Stewart Wolpin–who drew on his deep knowledge of the business with a recap of the slow and halting adoption of color TV when our host asked about bumps in the road to EV adoption.

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/01/21/weekly-output-pig-butchering-nextgen-tv-ev-charging-mark-vena-podcast/

#ATSC30 #batteryElectricVehicle #broadcastTV #ces #consumerElectronicsShow #electricCarCharging #EVCharging #MarkVena #NextGenTV #overTheAirTV #pigButchering #Shmoocon #WashingtonAutoShow

I closed out November with a flurry of published stories, some filed weeks ago. I like finishing strong in November, since that’s the last month that freelancers can reasonably expect to write something and get paid for it that year.

One of the posts published in the closing hours of last month but not listed below was an extra for Patreon readers: a Web Summit recap covering things that didn’t show up in stories for my other clients.

11/27/2023: What part of ‘get rid of my data’ don’t companies get?, Fast Company

I pitched this piece months ago, then took far more time than I expected to report it out and finally write the damn thing.

11/28/2023: The 3 best international tech innovations of 2023, Fast Company

I helped judge this competition for the second year in a row.

11/28/2023: The 4 next big things in robotics and automation for 2023, Fast Company

My second batch of “NBTT” value judgments covered this high-tech sector.

11/28/2023: The 5 next big things in space and telecom for 2023, Fast Company

Of course I was going to accept a story assignment from my editor that would let write about space.

11/28/2023: Researchers: Maybe the Internet Isn’t Making Us Miserable After All, PCMag

I wrote up a study questioning the widely-held belief that social media and the Internet in general are making everybody stressed, lonely and resentful.

11/29/2023: The Best Cell Phone Plans, Wirecutter

This minor update covered new high-end plans at T-Mobile and Verizon and updated readers about AT&T and Verizon’s C-band deployment, among other things.

11/30/2023: OpenAI At A Crossroads: Can AI Threaten Humanity?, Al Jazeera

I joined AJ’s The Take podcast, hosted by Malika Bilal, to disucss OpenAI’s recent calamities and the prospects for AI to live up to the hopes (or fears) of some of its bigger supporters.

11/30/2023: Ex-EVgo CEO: It Can Take 6 to 18 Months to Put a Charging Station Into Service, PCMag

Recently-retired EVgo CEO Cathy Zoi taught me a few things about the state of the EV-charging business in the panel hosted by Resources for the Future in D.C. that I watched from home via Zoom.

11/30/2023: Google Celebrates RCS Hitting the Billion-User Mark With Multiple Feature Drops, PCMag

I got advance copies of Google’s blog posts about RCS topping a billion users and the software feature drops the company staged to celebrate the occasion, then made sure to remind readers of Google’s most recent announcement of the total number of Android devices–more than 3 billion, announced in 2022, which suggests that most Android users have yet to benefit from this upgrade to SMS and MMS.

12/1/2023: Facebook Whistleblower: Want to Help Kids? Keep Them Off Social Media, PCMag

I bikeshared into D.C. to watch a different tech-policy panel, this one at the Brookings Institution and featuring Melanie Dawes, chief executive of the U.K. telecom regulator Ofcom, and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

Updated 12/11/2023 to add the Wirecutter guide that I had missed before.

https://robpegoraro.com/2023/12/03/weekly-output-data-minimization-next-big-things-in-tech-x3-online-mental-health-study-ai-risks-ev-charging-google-celebrates-rcs-milestone-child-safety-online/

#automation #ChatGPT #dataBreaches #dataMinimization #digitalWellbeing #electricCarCharging #EVCharging #EVgo #FrancesHaugen #GoogleMessages #mentalHealthOnline #OnlineSafetyAct #OpenAI #RCS #robotics #satellites #Space

Why yes. I did rent an electric automatic car for my UK trip. 100% the correct decision. Goes like greased lightning! Costs the same as a pint! Hurrah!

#ElectricCar #Travel #ElectricCarCharging #TravelWriter

I rarely get as excited about review products as I got about this. But it’s versatile, usable, and safe!
#youtube #review
Why The J+ Booster 2 (Juice Booster 2) The Best EV Charging Cable You'll Ever Own!
https://youtu.be/to9H7_emGog

#electriccarcharging #electriccars