£10m Bet on Making Motorway EV Charging Work

New £10m trials target motorway charging bottlenecks, while parallel funding tackles grid limits to boost reliability

16 Jan 2026

Britain is shifting its electric vehicle charging policy from rapid expansion to reliability, with new public funding aimed at improving performance on the roads drivers use most.

UK Research and Innovation, working with Innovate UK, has launched a funding competition of up to £10mn to support projects that can increase charging capacity across the Strategic Road Network, which includes motorways and major A-roads. The programme is focused on solutions that can be built and tested in live traffic environments, with an emphasis on speed, reliability and ease of deployment.

The initiative comes as growth in the charging market becomes harder. The UK now has more than 86,000 public charging devices across about 45,000 locations, according to data from Zapmap. Much of the recent expansion has been in ultra-rapid chargers and large motorway hubs designed for long-distance travel.

However, the pace of new openings has slowed. Operators cite higher construction and energy costs, alongside long delays in securing grid connections, as barriers to expanding high-power sites. These constraints have become more visible as demand concentrates on fewer, busier locations.

Industry structure is also changing. In 2025, EDF completed its acquisition of Pod Point, bringing one of the UK’s largest charging networks fully under the ownership of a major energy supplier. Similar deals reflect a wider trend away from venture-backed startups towards ownership by utilities and infrastructure groups with stronger balance sheets and closer links to the power system.

Alongside the motorway-focused competition, the government has launched a separate £10mn funding programme to address grid limitations. That scheme supports technologies that allow rapid chargers to operate with smaller grid connections or to run partially off-grid, enabling sites to open while awaiting full network upgrades.

Taken together, the two programmes signal a shift in policy priorities. Rather than maximising charger numbers, officials and operators are focusing on uptime, throughput and site design at the busiest travel hubs.

Industry executives say consumer acceptance of electric vehicles is no longer the main hurdle. Instead, confidence depends on whether drivers can rely on fast charging when travelling long distances. If the new funding delivers practical results, the UK’s charging market may move into a more mature phase, where performance matters more than scale.