Allstar has warned EV drivers to expect queues at charging points ahead of the Easter bank holiday weekend.

The two busiest days for public charging in the lead-up to the Easter holiday are the Wednesday and Thursday before Good Friday

Analysis from more than half a million charging events across its 19,000+ charging network shows that the two busiest days for public charging in the lead-up to the holiday are the Wednesday and Thursday before Good Friday.

Despite all the hype about long queues over the bank holiday period, Easter Sunday and bank holiday Monday in 2023 saw around half as many charges taking place compared to the days before and after.

Easter Sunday was the quietest day for public charging of the entire two-week long holiday period, with just over a third of the volume of charges of the Thursday before Good Friday. However, the charging infrastructure goes back to typically high levels of usage on the Tuesday after the bank holiday.

Published as electric vehicle drivers make their escape to traditional destinations such as Cornwall, Devon and Norfolk for the school holidays, the research also shows that Easter is around a third busier for the electric vehicle charging network than Christmas.

Even Christmas Eve, typically one of the busiest days on Britain’s roads, was quieter than every day over the Easter period in 2023 for public charging. In fact, the highest volume of charging over Christmas took place in the week before, and then remained at around half that level from the 24 December right through to the new year.

Ashley Tate, managing director of Allstar Chargepass, said: “Understanding how busy holiday periods get for charging is one of the new challenges for electric vehicle drivers, and our data will help to inform this. Also, as one of the largest EV networks in the UK with more than 19,000 charge points, now including the Tesla Supercharger network, electric vehicle drivers have many options about how they charge with Allstar.”