UK to mandate EV chargers in residential and office construction, report says – Roadshow [CNET]

With major cities around the world preparing to ban internal-combustion-powered vehicles from their roads in the coming decades, the question of how to prepare for the charging needs of the electric vehicles that we’ll conceivably have on the road becomes pretty critical. According to a report published on Thursday by The Daily Mail, the UK might have a solution.

That solution is simply mandating that all new homes and offices in England include EV chargers as part of their plans. This could be as simple as a Level 2 charger in a suburban garage or as costly as a bank of DC fast chargers in an underground office parking lot, if the legislation introduced by Transport Minister Rachel Maclean passes later this year.

It could be argued that mandating EV chargers in new construction will add to the cost of that construction and that many people buying new homes might not even own an EV. But in all likelihood, the additional cost for residential builders will be minimal, especially considering that UK homes already run on better-than-220-volt power, and having a built-in charger removes one major hurdle to EV ownership. The legislation isn’t coming out of the blue, either — the government floated the idea back in 2018.

It would seem as well that homebuyers wouldn’t be shouldering the cost alone. The current government has earmarked £1.3 billion (around $1.8 billion) to help with the installation costs, but that also gets divided between public and commercial building chargers.

While this would be a significant step forward for EV adoption in the UK, there is still a long way to go before the current administration’s goal of a total prohibition of new ICE vehicle sales by 2030 is remotely feasible.

The UK’s Department of Transport didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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