She explained that, although some trials have found EV users preferred to use their own domestic chargers, “our information from the north east shows that people are charging more from public infrastructure than at home for a variety of reasons, and this will evolve as the number of vehicles increases”.

Charge Your Car, a joint venture with Elektromotive, aims to build a national pay-as-you-go (PAYG) network of 10,000 charging points.

Other private operators are also aiming to provide access to thousands of charging facilities – Polar, for example, is targeting 4,500 by 2014, and the POD Point PAYG 5,000 by the end of 2013.

Rapid chargers are also increasingly starting to appear at motorway service stations and other key inter-city locations, though they are expensive, and providers also see the need for more on-street inner-city chargers to support people without access to off-street parking.

“The market will drive what’s needed, where there’s going to be a demand,” said Prescott.

“In the north east, we saw some interesting developments. In the early days, we had more posts in commercial places, shopping centres, cinemas, hotels, and then we started to see a huge increase in charge points in workplaces.

“Another development is facilities management packages; you could integrate charge points into the whole site and the buildings emissions control, and integrate with company fleet costs.”

Besides the availability of PAYG and roaming, further developments expected include “more joined-up and symbiotic relationships”, added Prescott.

These include linking public car charging to home energy accounts and free usage of facilities for customers or clients of businesses, such as supermarket loyalty card holders.

For fleets, there is the potential to access to the infrastructure via a car’s telematics, which Charge Your Car is currently discussing with an EV lease provider. 

Though just 1,358 vehicles eligible for the plug-in car grant (including plug-in hybrids and range-extended EVs) were registered between January and October this year, the network and facility providers are banking on a growth in sales, spurred by the launch of more mainstream models such as the Renault Zoe.