While such services could put a dent in the global public charging infrastructure problem, they will not achieve the massive scale required to solve it any time soon.

Indeed, the lengths these start-ups are going to squeeze out more charging capacity underscores the continuing difficulty, despite public subsidies, of developing the ubiquitous charging network needed to support a full transition to EVs.

The US and Europe are subsidising both public rapid-charging and slower on-street charging networks, but their development has been hobbled by a myriad of national and local rules and what the British House of Lords described in a recent report as “outdated and disproportionate planning regulations”.

Many prospective owners are avoiding EVs and sticking with fossil-fuelled cars, a major factor slowing EV demand globally.

Ride-sharing giant Uber has earmarked $800m through 2025 to help its drivers switch to EVs but has found many live in urban “charging deserts”, said Uber’s global sustainability head Thibaud Simphal.

Uber said its efforts to partly finance local authorities’ charging projects have been bogged down by bureaucracy.

Veteran Uber driver David Dario Cuny wants an EV, but has nowhere to charge near his apartment in a Paris suburb.

“I would make the switch tomorrow,” he said, if charging were available.

Clare Tan had similar concerns before she leased her BYD Atto 3 SUV. She lives in an apartment but found a homeowner renting a charger near her workplace north of London.

Tan used an app called Co Charger, where about 5,500 “hosts” list chargers for rent. “People need confidence they can charge affordably to buy EVs,” said chief executive Joel Teague.

Home charging, while slow, is by far the best option because the power is cheaper. Public fast chargers can substantially charge an EV in less than a half hour but can cost 10 times as much, nullifying fuel-cost advantages over petrol and diesel cars.

“I couldn’t afford an EV if I used rapid chargers,” said Tan, who said her charger rental was about half the cost.

There is no shortage of drivers like Tan or Cuny.

In a 2023 Ipsos survey, 39% of 4,000 British drivers polled said they would switch to an EV if they did not have to rely exclusively on public charging facilities.

And in a US national 2022 poll by Ipsos, 37% of drivers asked what would encourage them to buy a fully-electric car or a plug-in hybrid said the ability to charge it at home.

Heather Hochrein founded Redwood City, California-based EVmatch in 2016 to connect charger owners and renters. 

It was slow to take off, so she built a business setting up and running thousands of chargers for apartment complexes in 47 US states, which EVmatch also rents to the public through its app.

Such peer-to-peer charging companies say they have seen strong growth, but their upside may be limited. Charger-sharing requires a critical mass of homeowners willing to rent chargers in a particular area because customers typically need to be able to walk somewhere while their car refuels.

Some 30,000 of the 600,000-plus chargers in about 20 European countries on Danish firm Monta’s charging app are peer-to-peer private chargers, but CEO Casper Rasmussen said growth was much slower in markets like Germany, where homeowners require an expensive licence to rent out their chargers.

Charge Fairy serves EV drivers more focused on convenience than cost. The mobile service fields five vans full of batteries in London that can rapidly charge EVs wherever they are parked.

Demand has been strong, and Charge Fairy says it cannot take on any more retail customers until it can add more vans.

Chief executive Ed Lea said Charge Fairy, which also serves corporate customers such as car-sharing firm Zipcar, is talking to three luxury automakers about developing a concierge charging service.

Other companies want to expand the number of homes that can install chargers. British start-up Kerbo Charge is among those using pavement gullies — a narrow, square tube sunk into the footpath to carry a charging cable to the street from a home.

A handful of such British start-ups are running pilot projects with local authorities.

Kerbo Charge has approval from the US city of Philadelphia to install gullies and expects agreements with local authorities in Britain soon, said company director Michael Goulden, adding: “No one’s going electric if they can’t charge at home.”

Here in Ireland, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan earlier this month said Ireland was “perhaps more suited to EVs than many countries because more of us live in houses where we have space to charge at home”. 

“This gives us a huge advantage and signs on it, with over 110,000 EVs on the road already,” he said.

Nonetheless, he announced the launch of a new €21m scheme to accelerate the development of high-powered EV charging infrastructure across Ireland’s road network.

“In line with EU regulations, this initial scheme targets the motorway/dual-carriageway network, driving the installation of high-power recharging pools with 1200kW power output every 60km, with at least four 150kW recharging points in each pool,” Mr Ryan’s department said. “The grant aims to stimulate the private sector to provide new recharging pools by the end of 2025.

“The scheme targets publicly available facilities within 3km driving distance of the motorway/dual-carriageway network such as service area operators, hotels, retail outlets for example.

“Future schemes, which will be rolled out over the coming year, will continue to target other parts of the road network as well as recharging at destinations and in neighbourhoods, further supporting Ireland’s Climate Action Plan targets and the country’s EV growth trajectory.”

• Reuters