ZEV Mandate Mistakes: Britain’s EV fleet grew 33% in a year but public charging can’t keep up [New Research]

The UK government is set to weaken its targets for how many new cars sold need to be electric vehicles (EVs) following concerns from car makers and trade unions. Currently, the ZEV mandate requires that 33% of all new cars sold be fully electric, with this percentage increasing each year. 

In June, HMRC’s updated Advisory Fuel Rates are also paying employees 15p per mile for public charging, double the 7p per mile for home charging. Showing that despite changing EV sales targets, for UK drivers and businesses with fleets, the message to go electric is clear. But new data from Hippo Leasing reveals a major problem being overlooked in that push: the UK’s charging infrastructure simply cannot keep up with EV growth.

Hippo Leasing’s new EV Hotspots: The UK’s Electric Vehicle Business Leasing Report has mapped EV data across all of the UK’s local authorities, cross-referencing government vehicle registration data, official public charging statistics, and Hippo’s own internal business lease enquiries to reveal where Britain’s electric fleet revolution is really happening and where the infrastructure is falling behind. The key findings tell a surprising story:

• Britain’s EV fleet grew 33% in a single year, reaching 2.84 million ultra-low-emission vehicles on UK roads by the end of 2025.
• More than half (50.6%) of every UK electric vehicle is company-kept, not privately owned, meaning the EV revolution is being driven by business, not households.
• Public charging grew just 22.8% while the EV fleet grew 33%, actively worsening the UK’s average ratio from 30.6 to 33.1 electric vehicles per public charger in a single year.
• In Cheshire West and Chester, the disparity is extreme; an increase in corporate fleet registrations pushed the EVs-per-charger ratio from a manageable 36:1 in 2024 to a strained 184:1 by October 2025.
• The North–South divide is a myth; the North and the South both grew their EV fleets at an identical rate of 31.7% year-on-year, with nearly identical commercial EV density (1,068 vs. 1,063 EVs per 1,000 businesses).
• The average UK business EV lease now costs £499 per month over 41 months, covering 10,578 miles per year, much less than the eye-watering premiums businesses once feared.

The data carries a direct implication for the government’s changing 2030 targets. Private EV ownership is now growing faster than corporate, 41.0% year-on-year versus 26.0% for company-kept vehicles, meaning more private drivers are joining an infrastructure network already stretched by fleet demand. Without a change in charging infrastructure rollout, the UK risks creating EV charging deserts in areas seeing the fastest fleet growth.

Tom Preston, CEO of Hippo Leasing, comments: “Businesses across the UK are embracing electric vehicles at a remarkable speed, and our own lease data shows nearly 20% growth in EV business deals in a single year. These cars are being driven day-to-day across every corner of the UK, proving that the corporate green transition is far more widespread than the official postcode maps suggest. But this report shows that in too many areas, the charging network simply isn’t keeping up. No business should be committing to an electric fleet only to find they’re operating in a charging desert.”