EV Charging: Are We Solving the Right Problem?

Electric vehicle charging is improving rapidly. There are more chargers, more powerful chargers and cars capable of accepting increasingly impressive charging rates.

Yet the experience of using the public charging network can still feel unnecessarily complicated.

Drivers must consider where the chargers are, whether they are working, which plugs they provide, whether they are already occupied, how they must be paid for and whether the charger will actually deliver anything close to the power displayed on its casing.

The industry appears to be in an arms race to eliminate one of the most commonly cited disadvantages of electric vehicles: the time taken to recharge.

But have we already reached a reasonable charging time?

More chargers, but not necessarily more availability

The UK public charging network continues to expand, with more than 119,000 public chargers recorded by April 2026.

That is significant progress, but the national total does not necessarily reflect the experience of the individual driver.

A charger might be:

• In the wrong location
• Occupied
• Out of service
• Limited to a particular connector
• Delivering less power than expected
• Installed behind a barrier or within a closed car park
• Shared between several vehicles

There is also an important difference between chargers, sockets and vehicles that can charge simultaneously.

A charging unit may offer both CCS and CHAdeMO cables, but it may still only be able to charge one vehicle at a time. A CCS vehicle using that unit can therefore prevent a CHAdeMO vehicle from accessing the only compatible connector at the location, even when other CCS chargers remain available.

For drivers of older Nissan Leafs and other CHAdeMO vehicles, the headline number of chargers can therefore be misleading. What matters is not how many chargers exist nationally, but how many compatible and operational chargers are available when they are needed.

The direction of travel is CCS

For AC charging, the Type 2 connector is now the normal standard across the UK and Europe.

For rapid DC charging, CCS Combo 2 has become the dominant European standard. It combines the familiar Type 2 arrangement with two additional DC connections, allowing the same vehicle inlet to support slower AC charging and high-powered DC charging.

CHAdeMO played an important role in the early development of rapid charging, particularly through Japanese manufacturers. However, fewer new European-market cars now use it, and charger investment is increasingly focused on CCS.

CHAdeMO will not disappear immediately. There are still many compatible vehicles on the road, and drivers need reasonable access throughout the remaining life of those cars. Nevertheless, the long-term direction is clear: the UK and European markets are converging around Type 2 for AC charging and CCS Combo 2 for rapid DC charging.

Standardisation should eventually make charging simpler. Drivers should no longer need to study a collection of connectors before deciding whether a particular station can charge their vehicle.

The number on the charger is only half the story

Charging speed is usually described using the maximum power of the charger:

• 7 kW for typical home and destination charging
• 22 kW for faster AC charging
• 50 kW for traditional rapid DC charging
• 100 to 150 kW for faster rapid charging
• 250 to 350 kW for ultra-rapid charging

However, connecting a car to a 350 kW charger does not mean that the car will continuously receive 350 kW.

The actual charging rate is limited by whichever is lowest:

• The maximum capacity of the charger
• The maximum charging rate of the vehicle
• The battery’s state of charge
• Battery temperature
• The vehicle’s charging curve
• Power being shared with other chargers
• The available electricity network capacity

A car capable of accepting only 50 kW will not charge any faster when connected to a 350 kW unit.

Equally, a car advertised as capable of accepting 250 kW or 320 kW will normally achieve that figure only during part of the charging session. Charging power usually rises, reaches a peak and then falls as the battery fills.

This is why manufacturers commonly advertise the time required to charge from 10% to 80%, rather than from empty to completely full.

The final 20% can take disproportionately longer as the battery management system reduces power to protect the battery.

Cars and chargers are not always developing at the same speed

Modern EVs increasingly feature large batteries, long ranges and very high maximum charging capacities.

Some vehicles can accept more than 300 kW under suitable conditions and can recharge from approximately 10% to 80% in around 18 to 20 minutes.

That is an impressive engineering achievement.

However, it only benefits the driver when a suitable charger is available, operating correctly and capable of delivering the required power.

There is limited value in owning a car capable of charging at 320 kW when most of the chargers encountered deliver 50, 100 or 150 kW. Equally, installing large numbers of 350 kW chargers may provide little benefit if the vehicles using them cannot accept that power or if the grid connection cannot support several simultaneous charging sessions.

The car industry and the charging industry are therefore involved in parallel development races. Vehicle manufacturers promote higher peak charging rates, while charging operators install increasingly powerful equipment.

But the two sides do not always meet in real-world operation.

The electricity network remains a constraint

A charging station containing twelve 350 kW chargers has a theoretical maximum demand of 4.2 MW.

That is a substantial electrical load.

It may be possible to manage this through diversity, battery storage, on-site renewable generation and intelligent power sharing. Nevertheless, providing several megawatts of new grid capacity can require major network reinforcement.

The charger itself may be relatively quick to install. Obtaining the necessary electricity connection can be slower, more expensive and considerably more complex.

This is particularly challenging at motorway services, retail parks and urban sites where existing electrical capacity may already be heavily utilised.

Dynamic load management can help by distributing the available power between connected vehicles. However, this also means the power displayed on each charger may not be the power each driver receives when the station is busy.

The limitation is no longer simply the charging equipment. It is increasingly the capacity of the local electricity infrastructure behind it.

Do we need charging hubs everywhere?

The conventional model is to concentrate rapid chargers at a relatively small number of large charging hubs.

This has advantages. Drivers know where to go, operators can maintain several chargers at one location, and facilities such as toilets and cafés can be provided.

However, concentrating demand also creates challenges:

• Large grid connections are required
• Queues can develop at peak times
• One access problem can affect the entire site
• Valuable land is needed
• Drivers must divert to a specific charging location
• A local power constraint can restrict every charger

In urban areas, a more distributed model may be more practical.

Instead of one site with twelve ultra-rapid chargers, perhaps the same area could have twelve individual or paired rapid chargers spread across a square mile.

They could be located at supermarkets, cafés, gyms, hotels, car parks, business centres and existing fuel stations.

A reliable app or in-car navigation system could show:

• Which chargers are available
• Which connectors they provide
• Their current charging speed
• Whether they are operational
• The price per kWh
• Whether they can be reserved
• How long the current charging session is expected to last

This would distribute the electrical demand, make better use of existing connections and bring charging closer to places drivers already visit.

It could also reduce the risk of arriving at a single hub where every charger is occupied.

Large hubs will remain important on motorways and major transport routes. But cities may benefit from a more decentralised charging network rather than attempting to reproduce the traditional petrol station model.

Is faster always meaningfully better?

The industry continues to promote shorter charging times as a major competitive advantage.

Ten minutes sounds better than twenty. Five minutes sounds better than ten.

But this may eventually become a largely artificial advantage.

For most long-distance drivers, a stop of approximately 20 minutes is not necessarily unreasonable. It provides enough time to use the toilet, buy a coffee, check messages and take a short break from driving.

Reducing that stop from 20 minutes to 12 minutes may look impressive in a vehicle specification, but it may have limited practical value if the driver has not finished their coffee.

The real problems may no longer be charging speed itself.

Drivers are more likely to be frustrated by arriving at a charger that is occupied, broken, incompatible or delivering much less power than expected.

A dependable 20-minute charging stop may be more valuable than a theoretical 10-minute stop that is rarely achieved.

From a charging-speed race to a charging-experience race

The next stage of EV charging should not be measured only by the maximum number of kilowatts printed on the charger.

The better measures may be:

• How likely is a driver to find an available charger?
• How often does it work?
• Can every modern EV connect to it?
• Does it clearly display the price?
• Can the driver pay without joining another network?
• Does it deliver a reasonable proportion of its advertised power?
• Is the location safe, accessible and convenient?
• Is the charger positioned where the driver already wants to stop?

EVs and charging networks have made remarkable progress. A sub-20-minute rapid charge is now technically achievable for a growing number of vehicles.

Perhaps that is already fast enough.

The greater challenge is making that charging time predictable, accessible and available to everyone.

The winner of the EV charging race may not be the company offering the highest theoretical charging speed.

It may be the one that makes charging so dependable that drivers stop thinking about it.