When the Nissan Leafs and Teslas flock to the seaside this summer, the arrival of their well-off drivers should be good news for British tourism.
But tourism leaders have warned that places such as Dorset, Cornwall and North Yorkshire risk being overwhelmed by the demand for charging points for electric cars, putting off tourists from returning in the future.
One in three new cars sold in December was electric, and rural and coastal areas are in danger of being left behind as operators scramble to add more public charging points.
Dorset has 133 charging devices, a rate of 35 per 100,000 people, which is slightly below the national average. But the Jurassic coastline gets 3.6 million overnight visits a year, most of them in the summer, forcing tourists to compete with locals for charging points.
Seasonal demand means holidaymakers are likely to see a repeat of the Christmas chaos when Tesla drivers had to queue for hours at service stations, according to Martin Cox, vice-president of the British Holiday and Home Parks Association.
Cox, who also runs two holiday parks in Dorset, said: “If that snowballs in July and August, then we’re going to have friction in our area because people are not going to be able to go anywhere. In Dorset, they sell 35% more petrol and diesel during peak weeks. This summer, we will probably see people queuing at EV points and people arriving late at our accommodation because they’ve had to wait to charge their car.”
Most electric car owners charge their vehicle at home on their driveway or at work and expect to do the same on holiday, said Cox, who is also an electric vehicle owner.
“We have about 500 cars a night in August,” he said. “We’ve got 11 electric vehicle charging points and we’ve now reached the limit. If we put any more on, we’re going to start tripping out sections of the park. Even if I turned off everything in the holiday park, we could only charge up 80 cars overnight.
“On the coast, we’re right at the end of the line for infrastructure – it’s like broadband all over again.
“It’s going to hurt the tourism economy because people are going to travel down on a Saturday night and they’re not going to have the ability to recharge those cars for their day trips on the Sunday. So they’re going to spend less money.”
Richard Toomer, executive director of the Tourism Alliance, said: “Unless we grip the issue of a lack of charging infrastructure, we will continue to see huge queues on tourist routes, as is already happening at key times of the year. That’s bad for tourism, bad for business, bad for Britain as an attractive place to visit and explore, and bad for the environment as people revert back to traditional cars for their getaways.”
Journeys outside peak times are usually much smoother, and electric car owners can drive from the UK across Europe without any hint of a queue. But so-called “range anxiety” remains an issue.
Lisa Johnson, the owner of LJ Natural, a handmade organic and sustainable beauty products business, often drives her Kia from south Manchester for getaways to the North Yorkshire coast. “We go to a beautiful little coastal village, and there’s no electric charging at all. There is in Whitby down the coast, but what we find regularly is that you’ll get there and there’s already someone charging, or they’re not working. I’m not going back to petrol, but you do need massive forward planning.”
Charging companies have been expanding rapidly, and so far the UK has 37,600 devices, with 8,300 added last year, and various government schemes for workplaces, landlords and local authorities to install charge points. Cornwall said it was adding 150 charge points this summer.
Ionity, a Europe-wide network, said it aimed to have rapid charging stations on major roads across the continent and the UK so that no one would be more than about 80 miles from a rapid charger.
But setting up a site can take months, according to InstaVolt chief executive Adrian Keen. The firm needs to work out if a site is commercially viable and apply for planning permission to build it. The biggest bottleneck is working out how much electricity can be routed to the charging station, and that depends on how much energy is spare in the local electricity network.
Meanwhile, the distribution networks say they could add power more quickly but Ofgem regulations mean they are not allowed to build new substations or power lines until they have received a firm request, preventing them from building capacity in advance. Power companies believe that once the UK has transitioned to electric vehicles in about 2050, the country will need roughly 50% more electricity to charge them.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said people should feel confident they can charge their cars, whether going on holiday or commuting: “The government has already invested over £2bn into accelerating the transition to zero-emission vehicles, and there are grants available to businesses, including tourist sites, to subsidise the costs of installing charge points.”
• This article was amended on 21 February 2023. An earlier version referred to InstaVolt and included, among their steps to set up a charging site, finding “the microchips to build it”. To clarify: Instavolt say they do not need to consider microchips for their charger installation.
