The South West population has low access to publicly-funded electric vehicle infrastructure relative to other parts of the UK, according to new analysis from HSBC Commercial Banking.

Despite rising demand for electric vehicles and increasing awareness of the health issues caused by poor air quality, there are nearly 17,000 people in the UK for every publicly-available electric vehicle chargepoint, according to HSBC.  In the South West, around 20,000 people must share each public chargepoint available.

While around 47,000 plug-in cars were registered in 2017, only 173 new, publicly-funded chargepoints became available that same year.