“Serious injustice” as EV chargepoint rollout ignores disabled drivers

Two and a half years after the introduction of specific guidance to ensure public EV chargepoints are accessible for all, the government’s spending watchdog has hit out at those in power for ignoring the needs of disabled people as none of the nation’s public chargers are fully barrier-free for disabled users, according to the UK’s leading disability mobility charity.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), chaired by Conservative MP, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, recently published its review into UK electric car charging infrastructure, raising concerns surrounding what it describes as potential “inequalities in the cost of driving”.

The report points out that, according to a study by the Motability charity conducted last year, none of the UK’s EV public chargepoints can be deemed “fully accessible” for disabled people. This conflicts slightly with a study by Vauxhall towards the end of 2024, which found that around 2.3 per cent of on-street public EV chargers comply with the PAS 1899 accessibility rating standard. Of course, this is still a tiny proportion of charging locations whichever way you look at it, and the poor state of affairs is thought to be largely due to the fact that PAS 1899 standards are not mandatory – something Motability, as well as Auto Express, has called for change on.

At this time, the government is yet to publish its review of PAS 1899, with both the PAC and Motability (a co-author of the standard), calling on the government to do so. Clifton-Brown warned in a statement that disabled people have thus far “been left behind in the rollout”, and that a lack of action “risk[s] baking a serious injustice into the fabric of a major part of our national infrastructure”.

International collaboration on accessible chargers

In the meantime, one concept highlighted by the PAC in its report is greater collaboration between different nations regarding accessible EV charging in order to generate greater demand and supply of unique disabled-friendly parts.

With over 16 million people in the UK identifying as being ‘disabled’, Motability CEO, Nigel Fletcher, said that the charity is “encouraged to see that this report recognises that there is a risk of disabled people being left behind in the rollout of public chargepoints”, calling for new rules to ensure “providers of public charging [take] responsibility for ensuring their infrastructure is accessible”.

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