BT Group
The only shipper in the pilot project will close in February
BT has abandoned plans to turn green street cabinets into electric vehicle (EV) charging points, after completing just one of the 60,000 conversions it initially said it was aiming for.
The metal boxes, seen on the streets of the UK, are typically used for telephone and broadband cables.
When it announced the project in April 2024, BT said reusing the cabinets was a “unique opportunity” to overcome a “key barrier” for people moving away from petrol and diesel cars.
However, the project has now been abandoned, with the company saying it would instead focus on “the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding electric vehicles”.
“It’s disappointing that it didn’t come to fruition,” Stuart Masson of motoring site The Car Expert told BBC News.
“The good news we’re seeing across the industry is that the overall deployment of electric charging stations is accelerating faster than expected a few years ago,” he added.
However, he said most charging points are in busier areas rather than on streets closer to people’s homes, meaning BT’s decision remains a setback.
Mr Masson praised its commitment to improving Wi-Fi infrastructure around electric vehicle charging stations.
“It’s very frustrating when you show up at a charging station, go to log into the app…and you can’t get a connection because you’re buried in a multi-parking lot somewhere floors and there is no signal,” he said.
“If BT can make a dent in this area, that would be really good.”
Many green cabinets are reaching the end of their life as BT moves to fiber broadband.
But only one of them, in East Lothian, has been converted into a public charging point.
It will now close in February, according to The Fast Charge newsletter, which broke the story.
The charger currently shows as ‘out of service’ on the Evve Charge app, which shows EV charger locations in the UK.
East Lothian Council has been contacted for comment.
A BT Group spokesperson said the trial tested “a lot about the challenges many on-street EV drivers face when it comes to charging and where BT Group can add the most of value to the UK electric vehicle ecosystem.
They added: “Other emerging needs we have identified include the Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding electric vehicles – our pilots will now focus on this issue to explore it further. »
The government has set a target of 300,000 public charging stations by 2030.
Its own statistics show there are 73,334 public charging points in the UK, an increase of 37% on a year ago.
Almost a third of these are in Greater London, according to electric vehicle charging company Zapmap.
