Future is electric on Scotland’s roads - Andrew Bruce

A revolution is underway as to how we re-fuel our cars. The days of traditional filling stations, as we know them, are numbered. Instead we need to see many thousands of public electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints.

The speed of this transformation is hotting up with electric vehicles accounting for more than 20 per cent of new car sales, and it is predicted that within the next 15 years, the majority of cars and vans on the road will be electric.

This rapid change is urgently required to help improve air quality and reduce carbon emissions thereby contributing to meeting Scottish Government’s net zero ambitions.

To encourage greater take-up of electric vehicles (EV), an extensive and growing network of public chargepoints is needed across Scotland so that drivers can set out on long journeys with the confidence that they will be able to simply and conveniently plug in and charge up when they want.

Transport Scotland has £30m of public funding for EV charging intended to attract a further £30m from the private sector

Scotland got a head-start to most parts of the UK through a £65 million Scottish Government investment over the last decade in the ChargePlace Scotland network, with chargepoints mainly owned by local authorities. To encourage early adoption of EVs, many of these chargepoints offered free charging, with the costs met by local authorities or other owners.

Our work at Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) has shown that with the growing popularity of EVs the provision of free or subsidised charging is now incompatible with a high-quality customer focussed network and one that is not being clogged up by those that could be charging at home.

In November last year Transport Minister Jenny Gilruth MSP affirmed Scotland’s vision for the future of the public charging network, saying that “a shift towards a public charging network largely financed and operated by the commercial sector is necessary.”

Currently free or subsidised charging is deterring the private sector in investing in the thousands of chargepoints required, as they cannot compete against subsidised prices. Through setting a competitive price, they can recover the cost of the electricity and the full costs of installing and maintaining high quality networks across Scotland.

Clearly, the introduction of commercial tariffs should be fair and affordable to all EV users. New flexible tariff structures are emerging which enable EV drivers to access lower cost charging at different times of the day. There also remains the option for local authorities to fund a discounted tariff for certain disadvantaged groups.

Even with the introduction of commercial tariffs on the Chargeplace Scotland network, there are still expected to be parts of the country where the private sector will find it less attractive to invest due to low or seasonal EV usage. This could include rural areas and slow on-street charging for those households that do not have a driveway. Therefore, Transport Scotland has a pot of £30m of public funding which is intended to attract at least a further £30m investment from the private sector, to ensure no-one gets left behind.

As Scottish Government’s public sector infrastructure body, we are supporting delivery of this fund, on behalf of Transport Scotland, and late last year published our Public EV Charging in Scotland report on tariffs. The fund will see partnerships formed between local authorities and the private sector, who will part-fund the installation and then maintain and operate these chargepoints.

An exciting time is ahead as we reduce the carbon emissions and pollution caused by our cars and vans. The future of motoring is electric!

Andrew Bruce heads up the Net Zero Transport Team at infrastructure body, the Scottish Futures Trust