South East leads the charge as UK’s most popular EV home charging region

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

Engineer fitting a Smart Home Charge EV home wallbox

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%.

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 1 June, 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 of 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.”

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Natalie Middleton

Natalie has worked as a fleet journalist for over 20 years, previously as assistant editor on the former Company Car magazine before joining Fleet World in 2006. Prior to this, she worked on a range of B2B titles, including Insurance Age and Insurance Day.