Telecoms giant BT has stepped back from its attempt to become an electric vehicle (EV) charging giant in the United Kingdom.

A publication called ‘The Fast Charge‘, reported that BT’s pilot scheme to install up to 60,000 EV charging stations by utilising its green street cabinets (found on most British streets) to address the chronic lack of public EV charging infrastructure in the UK, is being axed.

The Fast Charge noted that BT had in July 2023 shared the news that its start-up and digital incubation team (Etc.) would, over the next two years, “conduct technical and commercial pilots to convert or upgrade its street cabinets” to become EV charge points.

EV charging

Then in January 2024 BT revealed plans to convert “up to 60,000 street cabinets” across the UK, with their first charger set for installation in East Lothian in Scotland “within weeks”.

BT said at the time it was aiming to make use of cabinets that were near end-of-life and were due to be decommissioned, as the company deploys fibre directly to premises (FTTP) across the country.

The chargers would have offered up to 7.8kW of charging power to EV owners.

Etc. said in January 2024 it is planning to install between 500 and 600 EV charging points across the UK over the next 18 months as part of the trial.

But in the end, just one was installed on Monkmains Road in East Lothian in May 2024. This now will reportedly be removed in February 2025.

Scheme axed

According to The Fast Charge, knowing that the Fast Charge article was coming out, BT had emailed all users of the ‘evve’ charging app to announce the EV charger app and the pilot will “cease operations” on the 14 of February.

“We are writing to let you known that the evve charge app and pilot will crease operations on the 14th February 2025,” the email reportedly states. “This will include the charge point ion East Lothian, which currently is planned to be removed by the 14th February.”

“We sincerely thank you for your support throughout your time with us over the last year and being part of this pilot.”

The decision comes after BT announced last week that it had made a large purchase of 3,500 new EVs.

Going forward, it seems that the focus of Etc. will now shift to tackling connectivity problems that many drivers face at EV charging stations.

“Our EV charging trials have focussed on how we might help address the charging needs EV drivers face across the UK,” a BT Group spokesperson told The Fast Charge earlier this week. “By adopting a pilot process we have been able to test and explore a great deal about the challenges that many on-street EV drivers are facing with charging and where BT Group can add most value to the UK EV ecosystem. Other emerging needs we’ve identified include the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding EV’s – our pilots will now shift in focus to explore this further.”

Lack of EV chargers

The issue of EV charging stations in the UK is a controversial one, with critics pointing out that two in five homes in the UK (around 40 percent of British homes – although this figure is disputed) do not have driveways, and therefore people cannot install charging stations at their home that would offer a much cheaper overnight charging solution.

This high number of UK homes without driveways means that millions of EV drivers could potentially in future, remain reliant on public EV charging stations.

And critics argue there is simply isn’t enough EV charging stations in the UK, and therefore  existing EV charging stations experience heavy demand and wait times, leading to a longer period of time it takes to charge an EV, whereas an ICE-powered vehicle can be refuelled in two or three minutes.

The UK government however has set a target of 300,000 public charging points by 2030.

There are said to be 73,334 public charging devices currently in the UK – a 37 percent increase on a year ago.