OZEV: Using EV Charging Data To Improve Driver Experience

UK EV sales continue to boom. In December 2020, there were 205,770 electric cars on UK roads, which represented 0.6% of the total. By November 2024, this number had increased more than five-fold to 1,337,636. But does the charging experience meet drivers’ expectations? We look into EV charging data to find out.

Naturally, there is pressure for infrastructure to keep up with demand. Recent data shows that there are 72,594 electric vehicle charging points across the UK, across 36,316 charging locations and 106,094 connectors. This equates to one charge point for every 12.6 EVs on UK roads.

Nearly a third of drivers still don’t have a home charger

Mer’s customer EV charging experience survey in 2021 revealed that 30% of drivers didn’t have access to home chargers. In 2024, this figure remained roughly the same, with data from Zenith showing that one in seven EV drivers rely on public charging infrastructure, and 52% saying they would face ‘significant difficulties’ solely using public chargers.

A major barrier for potential EV owners and drivers is the lack of a driveway or other off-street parking to install a charger. In 2022, the SMMT’s Chief Executive Mike Hawes went on record to emphasise the need to ‘boost the roll-out of public on-street charging with mandated targets’, and this still stands over two years later.

At the start of 2021, the government laid out four critical areas requiring focus to improve public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

• Making it easy to pay – there should be a minimum standard across all charge points, so that drivers can charge and pay easily, regardless of journey length – and one that does not rely on a smartphone.
• Opening up EV charging data – to make it easy for drivers to find chargers, facilitate the development of consumer apps, encourage competition and innovation, and support system planning across the transport and electricity sectors.
• Use of a single payment metric – using pence-per-kilowatt hour (kWh) as the standard metric – to simplify understanding, and allow consumers to easily compare what they are paying at home with public network usage.
• A more reliable charging network: there needs to be a well-maintained, reliable charging infrastructure with a 24/7 helpline.

In OZEV’s (Office for Zero Emission Vehicles) 2021 electric car charging consumer experience consultation, they highlighted a particular need to address the lack of collaboration and data sharing between the many different EV charging providers.

They argued that opening up EV charging data to third parties and consumers would improve the growth, efficiency and quality of the UK electric charge point infrastructure as there was no ‘source of truth’ around charge point locations, type and operating status.

OZEV’s core findings around EV charging data in the UK:

• Only one-third of those involved in the study felt that charge points are easy enough to find
• Accurate EV charging data is not openly available to the parties that want/need it most
• ZapMap has a database monopoly – recording 95% of charge points in place. In comparison, the government’s own database (National Charge Point Registry (NCR)) only contains less than half of charge points and isn’t easy to use.
• Incomplete information around charge points poses a risk to the proper running of the Department for Transport and the energy network

The purpose of open EV charge point data

OZEV argue that access to accurate EV charge point data should ensure that:

• EV drivers can see where charge points are and also decide whether it suits their charging needs depending on the journey they are taking.
• Local authorities are able to take stock of reliable, usable and utilised charge points and react accordingly to ensure their community is properly served.
• Energy sector players know where charge points are, to inform network upgrades, and reinforcements, and balance the pressure on the grid. There’s a particular need for Distribution Network Operators to share information on their existing networks, to reveal where there is capacity to install more EV chargers and charging hubs.

OZEV recommended operators use the Open Charge Point Interface Protocol (OCPI) to facilitate data sharing – an independent cloud-based data protocol for the interconnectivity of back-office systems (Mobility Service Providers, CPOs and Navigation Service providers).

The ultimate goal of the protocol is to streamline the process of drivers being able to roam between charge points.

The overall benefits of EV roaming

• More visibility into the location and live status of charge points
• Simplified billing and enhanced price transparency
• Increased driver confidence around charger access
• It could support fleet electrification – a key step towards widespread adoption
• It creates the potential for future value-add-services (e.g. the option to opt to charge with renewable energy and advanced charge point booking)
• It could assist in managing the strain on the national grid.
• A faster ROI for CPOs thanks to an increased user base
• Higher customer retention for CPOs due to better User Interface (UI) and access to other networks
• A faster and more cost-efficient route-to-market in new regions – CPOs can start up in a new region just by joining an existing roaming platform.

Read more about EV roaming here.

Why OCPI?

There are four main data protocols in Europe being used to encourage ‘interoperability’ for EV roaming; the Open Clearing House Protocol (OCHP), the Open InterCharge Protocol (OICP), the eMobility Inter-Operation Protocol (eMIP), and the Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI).

OZEV’s recommended protocol – Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI) originates from the Netherlands and is funded by organisations such as the ElaadNL and the NKL.

What are the benefits of OCPI?

With OCPI it is theoretically possible for EV drivers to charge at any charging station with any charging card, regardless of national borders, station operator, or vehicle model.

• OCPI is the clear market leader and the static data available is sufficient to solve the most critical user needs
• OCPI is publicly available at no cost and without registration
• It supports all critical data points for investment planning and underpins commercial organisations’ ability to control and supply charge point aggregate data reports
• Is highly secure, no personal details are contained within messaging

OZEVs findings show that European countries with advanced EV adoption stats all encourage open charge point data, as well as a specific correlation between OCPI adoption, and wider EV utilisation.

Continuing concerns for OCPI:

Improvements and learnings are ongoing and there are some challenges to be overcome with OCPI:

• Many legacy operator platforms aren’t OCPI and therefore require custom integration.
• There are fears about the security of having many CPOs using the same communication systems.
• CPOs need to be considerate of data protection and cyber security risks of opening up their systems to third parties.
• There are some gaps in the OCPI data
• Existing initiatives show that opening data on the basis of use cases is preferred to blanket openness

Making EV roaming the norm

Roaming continues to be an important EV charging capability requested by drivers, with 55.1% of respondents in our 2021 survey wanting the ability to use a single charge card to access and pay for charging.

Mer is fully supportive of EV charge point ‘interoperability’ in the UK, as demonstrated by our roaming partnership with ZapMap, Paua, Octopus Electroverse, Tap Electric and Allstar. Our back-end system is fully compatible with OCPI. We continue to set up roaming partnerships and are aiming to ease driver concerns about reliability anxiety and ease of access.

EV charging experiences: The driver’s perspective

EV drivers would like to see the charging experience improved in several ways:

1. An increased availability of chargers

Although the UK’s charging infrastructure continues to grow, it is not maintaining pace with demand, especially at a regional level. The availability of charge points varies considerably depending on where you live in the country.

For example, of the 72,594 public charge points in the UK in November 2024, 21,488 were in Greater London. More than double the entire South East in 2nd place which has 9,290. At the bottom of the list, Northern Ireland has a mere 651.

2. The ability to roam

Drivers would like the ability to use a single charge card to access and pay for charging. While this is happening, it is not yet satisfactory.

Mer is fully supportive of EV charge point ‘interoperability’ in the UK, as demonstrated by our recent roaming partnership with Octopus Electroverse and Allstar. We’re setting up more roaming partnerships and are aiming to ease driver concerns about range anxiety and ease of access.

3. Access to faster charging speeds

With newer EVs accepting increased charging speeds, there’s a growing need to develop a network of rapid and ultra-rapid chargers for people who need quick top-ups. Read more about the development of rapid and ultra-fast charging networks here.

4. Increased vehicle range

Range anxiety used to be the top barrier to EV adoption. And although these fears have eased considerably, many drivers would still like to see car batteries with increased range.

The average car trip in the UK in 2023 was 7.3 miles – so most drivers needn’t be too concerned about range, given the average EV can travel up to 200 miles on a single charge. However, many potential EV drivers still consider it, and range is still very much a focus of manufacturers.