BT unplugs plans to turn old cabinets into EV chargepoints
Your battery might be flat, but the Wi-Fi signal is going to be great
UK telecom giant BT is pulling the plug on its EV charging ambitions after falling a long way short of the 60,000 street cabinets it reckoned could be repurposed.
It was all so different a year ago, when the company estimated that two-thirds of the 90,000 green cabinets squatting on UK streets could be repurposed as chargepoints for electric vehicles. After all, the cabinets already had a power source, and many would be redundant following the full fiber rollout.
The company pressed ahead with a pilot, with the first location set to be East Lothian, Scotland. And then it all went very quiet.
The Fast Charge newsletter, a UK mail-out, reported that BT had stepped back from the plans earlier this week, claiming that their first electric vehicle charge point, installed in Scotland, "will be the only one" and plans were afoot to remove it in February.
A BT spokesperson confirmed as much to The Register, saying: "Our EV charging trials have focused on how we might help address the charging needs EV drivers face across the UK. 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 EVs – our pilots will now shift in focus to explore this further. This is in line with BT Group's core focus on connectivity."
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BT did not elaborate on those challenges. It might be that the company underestimated the permissions and red tape involved in the conversion process, or they might have been put off by the difficulty of maintaining chargers – out-of-order public chargers are a blight on many EV owners' lives and you'd need plenty of feet on the ground to fix those.
As for what has been deployed so far, the spokesperson said: "We're working with the local council on next steps for the site," which likely means a swift decommissioning and a fervent hope that nobody will speak of this again.
By focusing on Wi-Fi, BT is undoubtedly working to its strengths, although EV drivers needing a top-up will be disappointed that the scheme has fallen flat. According to eMobility service provider ZapMap, it knew of 73,699 EV charging points across the UK by the end of 2024, across 37,011 locations and 108,410 connectors. This is in addition to domestic and workplace charge points.
Even without the contribution from converting old cabinets, the UK remains on track to hit its goal of installing 300,000 chargepoints by 2030, according to a December 2024 report from the country's National Audit Office. ®