While around 36.4 million petrol, diesel and hybrid cars need to fill up regularly with petrol and diesel, new data from the chargepoint sector indicates the market for public sockets currently stands at an estimated 477,000 cars.
That figure is based on comparing DVLA and Department for Transport statistics with figures from chargepoint data firm Zapmap, whose annual customer survey reveals that 77% of people using public sockets have no off-street parking.
Research published by the DfT earlier this year indicates that 91% of EV drivers have off-street parking. Based on a ‘parc’ of 1.3m electric cars, this leaves just 9% – equivalent to around 117,000 drivers – entirely reliant on public points.
Additionally, 23% of Zapmap customers have driveways but still use public charging, presumably to top up on long journeys. Extrapolating this to the UK’s 1.3m electric cars, this is equivalent to 299,000 further, occasional customers, for a total base of 477,000 drivers.
EV customer base set to be 40% less than petrol and diesel one
For the sake of simplicity (and partly because electric vans and HGVs often charge at depots) we’ll continue to focus on cars, and we’ll also assume the parc remains at 37.7m cars in perpetuity. If government policy remains unchanged, in the decades to come all these will eventually be electric.
While the vast majority of current EV owners have driveways, nationally that figure stands at 65%, leaving the remainder, equivalent to 13.2m cars, entirely reliant on public points.
Extrapolating Zapmap’s 23% figure for public-charging customers who have off-street parking yet use public points to top up, and a further 8.7m cars are added, for a maximum future customer base of 21.9m cars.
Once all cars are electric, 40% fewer will therefore need public charging compared to the 36.4m that presently need petrol and diesel. But the forecourt customer base is likely to be significantly smaller than this, as households without driveways are expected to make more use of on-street charging than dedicated hubs.
Other datapoints to emerge from Zapmap’s survey includes the fact that customer satisfaction with the public network rose from 60% last year to 69% in 2025, while EV drivers’ satisfaction with their vehicles stands at 87%, up one point on 2024.
