Rapid growth in EV rapid charging continues with 1,000 hubs now in use
With 972 hubs for general use and 65 for Teslas only, the country’s infrastructure rollout is progressing at a steady pace, despite ongoing concerns about disappointing demand for EV
Expansion of the UK’s EV charging infrastructure is continuing at a rapid pace, despite lower-than-anticipated demand for electric cars. New data from ZapMap shows there are now more than 1,000 rapid charging hubs across the country as part of the 119,000-strong public chargepoint network.
The number of EV charging hubs – locations that have eight or more rapid chargers capable of speeds of more than 100kW – has increased by five per cent in the first quarter of 2026 alone, growing from 926 to 972. This follows 28 per cent year-on-year growth throughout 2025, and doesn’t include an additional 65 Tesla-only hubs, bringing the grand total as of the end of March 2026 to 1,037.
ZapMap’s co-founder and COO, Melanie Shufflebotham, said: “Steady growth in the roll-out of charging infrastructure has continued in the first quarter of the year.” She called the growth in the number of charging hubs “encouraging”, and added: “This is what Zapmap’s driver satisfaction survey consistently tells us EV drivers most want and need.
These charging hubs constitute just one element of the UK’s overall public EV charging network, which now spans 119,080 chargepoints across 92,141 devices in 46,107 locations. The vast majority of the 3,028 new chargers installed so far in 2026 are of the slow variety (3-8kW), mainly serving those plugging in at the kerbside or in business parks.
However, almost 1,000 of these new installs were ultra-rapid units (those with an output of over 150kW). There are now 27,372 rapid and ultra-rapid public chargers in the UK, almost half (12,921) of which are of the latter, more powerful variety. In fact, while the number of ultra-rapid chargers has leapt up by as much as 39 per cent year-on-year, there are now 106 fewer rapid 100kW units as these devices are slowly upgraded.
Nevertheless, the UK’s charging network will need to continue to expand at a rapid pace given the Government’s lofty ambition of 300,000 public sockets by 2030; currently, the UK total sits only at around 40 per cent of this.
March this year saw the greatest number of electric cars registered in a single month to date, at more than 86,000. However, this only represented just over a fifth of all the cars registered, meaning the market remains far behind the 33 per cent market share required by the Government’s ZEV Mandate policy.
The SMMT’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, warned: “Against this backdrop [of the Iran war], and with the EV market falling further away from mandated levels despite record levels of incentives, an urgent review of the transition is required to secure a sustainable market, economic growth and the UK’s net zero ambitions.”
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