stonepeople/electric-car-charging-points

Lack of electric car charging points 'putting off drivers'

Lack of electric car charging points 'putting off drivers'

In March 2019 the BBC Shared Data Unit reported a "patchy" network of charging points was discouraging UK drivers from embracing electric cars.

Our analysis found more than a third of local authorities had ten or fewer locations where drivers could plug in their vehicles, with wide variation across the country.

We analysed data from Open Charge Map, a crowd-sourced website of charging locations. Not every location will feature in Open Charge Map, but it aims to be a "reliable single point of reference for charging equipment location information". There is no similar resource from the government.

As part of the story we used the Haversine formula to perform 49 million calculations for each distance (as the crow flies) between each of the 7,000 points, and then store the shortest one.

This piece of content was produced by a regional newspaper reporter working alongside BBC staff.

In a Twitter thread, Peter Sherlock explained why the data was used and how the team worked with that

The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to news organisations across the media industry, as part of a partnership between the BBC and the News Media Association. Stories generated by the partnership included:

• MKFM: Milton Keynes revealed as having highest number of electric car charging stations in the UK 5 April 2019

• Rochdale Online: Rochdale one of 137 local authorities to have no more than 10 charging points for electric cars 5 April 2019

• Stourbridge News: Dudley falls short on electric car charging points 5 April 2019

• Chronicle Live: Lack of charge points is threat to government plans for zero emission vehicles 5 April 2019

• Leicestershire Live: Nationwide shortage of charge points threatens government targets for electric vehicles 5 April 2019

• Stoke Sentinel: 853 motorists in North Staffordshire choose to drive an electric car - as the Government plans to phase out petrol and diesel 5 April 2019

• York: The Press: Electric vehicle numbers in York revealed - with 'hyper hub' charging on way 5 April 2019

• Wrexham and Flintshire: The Leader Live: Huge increase in electric and hybrid vehicles in Wrexham and Flintshire 5 April 2019

• KL.FM: Is West Norfolk prepared for an electric car revolution? 5 April 2019

• The Scarborough News: Ryedale has third longest average distance to electric car charging points in England 5 April 2019

• Bob FM: Report claims "Patchy" network of chargers is discouraging Hertfordshire's drivers from embracing electric cars 5 April 2019

• Swindon Advertiser: Thousands of electric cars in Swindon - but only 16 public charging points 5 April 2019

• Bristol Live: Nationwide shortage of charge points threatens government targets for electric vehicles 5 April 2019

• Cornish Stuff: Electric Car Revolution – Cornwall leading the way 5 April 2019

• Romford Recorder: Electric car charger points lag behind number of eco-vehicles in Havering, figures show 8 April 2019

The story was also used by the BBC News Channel, BBC Radio 5 live, BBC Radio Norfolk, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Three Counties Radio and BBC Hereford & Worcester.

Get the data

• Analysis, with sheets for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

Quotes and interviews

• Alex Banks from Exeter, owner of a Nissan Leaf
• Nicholas Lyes, head of roads policy, RAC
• Bridget Fox, Campaign for Better Transport
• Spokesperson, the Department for Transport (DfT)
• Spokesman, Scottish Government

Visualisation

• Interactive map: Average distance between charging locations, by authority
• Bar chart: Local authorities with the most charging locations

Background and briefing

• A full briefing pack on the story can be found here

Code

• RMarkdown notebook explaining how the distances were calculated