E.ON Drive has announced plans to install ultra-rapid electric vehicle (EV) charging hubs at six locations across Scotland.
The EV infrastructure arm of international energy supplier E.ON will install 42 ultra-rapid EV chargers across six sites, strategically positioned near major cities such as Dundee, Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dunfermline. Each ultra-rapid charger is capable of providing up to 150 miles of driving range in as little as ten minutes.
E.ON Drive already operates one other ultra-rapid EV charging hub in Scotland, located just south of Aberdeen. The Aberdeen hub, which E.ON states is its most northerly charging station in the UK, features 12 ultra-rapid charging bays, including four designed specifically for the accessibility needs of disabled drivers.
Dev Chana, managing director of E.ON Drive Infrastructure UK, said: “Our goal is to make electric driving seamless and accessible for everyone, and these new charging hubs are a significant step forward in Scotland’s transition to cleaner transportation. But this is just the start. These new hubs for Scotland are the latest part of a bigger drive to expand our EV charging network across the UK”
The company installed 72 ultra-fast charging bays across England and Wales in 2024, including ten at Wales’s first ultra-fast EV charging hub, located in a critical 20-mile gap in the charging network.
Charger fears holding back the EV transition are unfounded
A recent report by E.ON Drive revealed that fear around charger availability remains one of the biggest barriers preventing drivers from switching to an EV. Around 62% of survey respondents stated they were concerned about a lack of public chargepoints in their area, a concern that has been previously raised from a survey by Lloyds, which found over half of potential EV drivers chose not to make the switch due to a lack of available chargepoints.
However, much of the concern about chargepoint availability is not reflective of reality. In December 2024, the UK’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO) stated that the UK is on track to meet its 2030 target of 300,000 public EV chargepoints, noting that the 64,632 EV chargepoints installed as of July 2024 are in line with projections made by the Department for Transport (DfT) through the Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles (OZEV).
A more pressing issue is the lack of chargepoints on the UK’s motorway and A-road network – the NAO notes that only 62% of motorway service stations have met the target of operating six ultra rapid chargepoints, which the DfT aimed to have every service station meet by 2023.
