Government plans, commitments and targets
Headlines from the Transport Decarbonisation Plan (published by Department for Transport on 14 July 2021):
- The Government is ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030
- By 2035 all new cars and vans need to be zero-emission at the tailpipe
- A further £2.8bn package of measures has been pledged to support the switch to clean vehicles
- Project Rapid (government initiative of £950m to fund the installation of 6 ultra-rapid chargers at Motorway Service Areas (MSAs) in England by 2023, and install 6,000 across the strategic road network in England by 2035).
What we've been up to
By 2040 there could be as many as 36 million electric vehicles on the roads in the UK, so we’re working on the following priority areas:
We’re continuing to explore how to support a network of ultra-rapid chargers at key motorway services areas through ongoing engagement with the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) and Ofgem, helping to alleviate range-anxiety and encourage consumers to make the transition zero-emission cars and vans. We have identified a number of low-regret MSA sites which are best suited to a transmission connection, when considering cost, electricity demand and deliverability. We’ve shared this information with OZEV to accelerate the build of the required infrastructure, ahead of need.
We’re driving the need to manage when electric vehicles are charged. ‘Smart charging’ will smooth demand on the electricity system. It will ensure that increases at peak times remain manageable and it will also make best-use of existing generation capacity. When plugged-in, Electric Vehicles (EVs) could provide flexibility to help balance the supply and demand of electricity, potentially reducing costs for consumers. This could also include using EVs to supply electricity from their batteries back to the grid, known as ‘vehicle-to-grid’ (V2G).
Our next steps
Our analysis has shown that there is a need to expand the scope of project rapid to include on route charging/refuelling facilities at key MSAs in England for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) as part of the network infrastructure.
This is where we will continue to work with OZEV to accelerate the build and delivery of motorway service area connections onto the transmission network.
Sector specific news, stories and podcasts etc.
Hydrogen car testing
We recently invited members of the National Grid team, including our UK Executive Director Nicola Shaw, to test drive our own Hydrogen powered car and the results were surprising.

Consumer research into rapid charging
We recently commissioned a review of existing research into this topic which confirmed that consumers would feel more comfortable purchasing an EV knowing they had access to a rapid charging network.