Hundreds of electric car charging points risk being installed in 'wrong place' due to misleading data

Councils may be installing hundreds of taxpayer-funded charging points for electric cars in "the wrong place" due to "misleading" official data on the location of battery-operated vehicles, it has emerged.

Local authorities across the country are relying on Department for Transport data to determine how many of the vehicles are based in their area, and therefore the number of charging points that they need to install to match demand, often with government funding.

But industry experts have warned that in some areas the data wrongly gives the impression that many thousands of electric vehicles are based locally, when in reality the figure could be dramatically lower.

The "distortion" occurs because the relevant DfT data, which is cited on numerous council websites, simply sets out the location of vehicles' registered keepers, which are not necessarily the locations of the vehicles themselves.

Entire fleets of cars owned by leasing firms are usually registered at the companies' headquarters rather than at the addresses of those actually using the vehicles.

'It is absurd that the Government is unable to collect reliable data'

Ian Murray, the Labour shadow cabinet minister, said: "It is absurd that the Government is unable to collect reliable data on where electric vehicles are being used.

"The data set that is being used to determine investment in electric charging infrastructure is not fit for purpose, which risks it ending up in the wrong places. That is unacceptable when some regions are already being left behind."

Analysis produced by Field Dynamics, a consultancy firm that advises councils on the switch to electric vehicles, states: "This is the key data set that many stakeholders are using to understand and predict BEV [battery electric vehicles] adoption and therefore, where to invest in infrastructure. So if this data is misleading, then much of this investment will be going in the wrong place. And it is."

Ben Allan, managing director of Field Dynamics, added that councils were not being provided with crucial data showing how often existing public chargers are being used.

The Conservative MPs for Milton Keynes have hailed the fact that the town had "the second most electric car charging points in England", with an average of almost 135 devices for every 100,000 residents.

According to the DfT data, there are 21,594 ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs) in the town.

But a closer look shows that 20,069, or 92 per cent, of those vehicles were owned by companies, compared to only 1,525 owned privately. Milton Keynes is home to a large vehicle leasing firm.

'Local authorities should not base their decisions solely on vehicle registrations'

The council said it catered for "a large number of commuters" from outside the town, and its current estimate was that about 10,000 electric vehicles were present "on any one day, with a high proportion using the [charging] network we have".

Stockport appears to be home to 39,646 electric vehicles - a jump from 866 in early 2020. The town is home to Lex Autolease, one of the country's largest car leasing firms.

In another case, the number of electric vehicles registered in Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, has dropped from 7,663 last year to 550.

The drop appeared to be down to one company's entire fleet of cars being registered elsewhere.

A footnote on the spreadsheet containing the DfT data states: "There are several hotspots of ULEVs registered to company addresses that distort the geographic distribution of these figures over time."

A DfT spokesman said: "We are working closer than ever with local authorities to encourage the uptake of central government funding for the provision of charge points and drive more widespread regional and local action to increase the transition to electric vehicles.

"Decisions by local authorities on the installation of charge points should be based on a range of information available to them, not solely vehicle registrations."