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BT has scrapped a plan to turn roadside green cabinets into electric car chargers, after only managing to install one.
The British telecoms company had spied a chance to use the existing electricity connections to the cabinets, which usually house telephone and broadband internet equipment, to quickly install chargers. However, it will now shut down its sole charge point, in East Lothian, Scotland, according to the Fast Charge, a charging newsletter.
BT said in 2023 that as many as 60,000 cabinets could work as car chargers, out of 90,000 in total. The project could have contributed significantly to the 300,000 public chargers the UK government is aiming to install to cope with the growth in the number of electric vehicles on British roads.
The number of public chargers in the UK is growing rapidly every year. Companies installed a record 19,600 in 2024, with total numbers up a third compared with 2023.
However, the rate of growth slowed amid delays to government funding and a tougher financial environment for charge point operators. Companies raising funds for the expensive rollout of chargers have been hit by higher interest rates, as well as nervousness from investors as sales of electric cars have hit a plateau.
The BT plan, which was run by a digital startup unit called Etc., would have worked around one of the key problems for charger companies: installing new connections to the electricity grid. In the pilot installation, cars were not plugged directly into the cabinet, but rather to a separate post a few feet away.
BT has been an outspoken supporter of the shift to electric cars. In November, Clive Selley, the chief executive of BT’s Openreach broadband subsidiary, called on the government to stick with rules, called the zero-emission vehicles mandate, that push carmakers to sell more electric vehicles every year.
A BT Group spokesperson said the company had 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”.
The company will instead focus on providing “wifi connectivity” from cabinets instead, BT said.