Background

Government has committed to end the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. The installation of charging points is critical to enabling the uptake of electric vehicles, with the ready availability of reliable and easy-to-use public charge points key to incentivising future uptake.

We last reported on government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions from cars in 2021. In March 2022, government produced an electric vehicle infrastructure strategy which set an overall target of 300,000 public charge points by 2030. It acknowledged that the rollout to that point had been too slow and there were still significant barriers to uptake. It set out a series of interventions and commitments to improve uptake.

Scope

This study will examine whether government, led by the Department for Transport (DfT), is achieving value for money in supporting the rollout of electric vehicle infrastructure. It will examine whether DfT:

  • is delivering value for money in its interventions in the rollout of electric vehicle infrastructure
  • is identifying and managing risks to the successful deployment of electric vehicle infrastructure

NAO Team

Director: Jonny Mood
Audit Manager: Kristian Barrett