Ministerial fleet adds only 14 EVs in 5 years
Elsewhere... booming car registrations and BYD prepares for network launch
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome to the first Fast Charge newsletter of 2026.
I trust you all had a terrific festive period and are ready for whatever 2026 throws up. By the looks of things, it could be the most critical year yet for the EV industry.
Top story in today’s edition... I reveal the slow progress being made by the Government Car Service to go electric, with a fresh comparison to figures from 5 years ago.
Elsewhere... Car registration figures, chargepoint installations, new research suggesting chilly weather cools EV demand, and BYD hires former Gridserve manager to deploy its new ‘Flash Charging’ network.
And last, but certainly not least, I’m pleased to share that I’m joining the new Global Women in EV Day campaign as a founding partner – including details of how you can get involved too.
As ever, if you have any comments or feedback, please reply to this email or message me on LinkedIn.
👀 Revealed: Ministerial fleet’s slow progress to go electric
Summary: Just as we broke up for the festive period, I received an early Christmas gift from the Cabinet Office – a Freedom of Information response all about the Government Car Service. Aka, the fleet that exists to ferry around ministers.
The headline? The size of the ministerial fleet is now 108. It’s got 88 drivers on the payroll. And, out of those 108, only 42 are fully electric, 60 are hybrids, and six are purely petrol-powered. Here’s my observations...
To me... The size of that fleet seems enormous. By law, the UK Government can only have up to 109 paid ministerial roles across the board. Under Kier Starmer’s government, it’s believed there are around 120 ministers, as some are unpaid. That still means, as there are only 24 ministerial departments, that each Secretary of State could have almost 5 cars in the garage. Wowsers.
Likewise... 88 drivers, that is huge! I appreciate that we don’t want our ministers turning up to events in an Uber, but 88 does feel quite large. That’s bigger than most companies.
More importantly... I was quite surprised to discover that, despite the government having a deadline of 2027 for a fully electric fleet, the fact that, with 12 months to go, the ministerial cars are still largely petrol-powered feels misaligned with their rhetoric. Yes, of course, as I’ve reported before, we do not want to have a situation where our ministers can be blown to smithereens. However, as I said to The Times, which kindly covered these statistics over New Year, you do have to practise what you preach!
For comparison... Back in January 2021, I made the same request about the GCS fleet. In one of my first scoops for this newsletter, I found that only 2 in 10 cars (18 out of 87) were fully electric. So, despite having had five years, the Government Car Service doesn’t seem to have made much progress at all, adding only 14 more BEVs.
My bet is the GCS will be allowed to miss that deadline, although I hope to be proved wrong.
Finally, on this story... The Cabinet Office refused to tell me which makes and models of EVs they kept in their fleet. They cited national security as the reason not to disclose. However, having gone through Hansard, it seems the Department for Transport and the Scotland Office didn’t get that memo. In October 2024, both departments revealed they had been allocated a Jaguar I-Pace. Doh! Furthermore, in 2020, the then Conservative Government revealed to Parliament a full list of car models they’d procured which, from an EV perspective, included the Nissan Leaf alongside the i-Pace. Woops!
🚨 I am supporting Global Women in EV Day on 10 February
Summary: I’m really pleased to share that The Fast Charge is joining Global Women in EV Day, a new campaign to elevate the women driving the global transition to electric mobility, as a Founding Partner.
Why now... I have been covering the EV sector each week for more than five years now, and while I’ve seen more female voices in this industry – which is terrific – the truth is, the automotive and energy sectors can still be very male-dominated. There are lots of existing projects to raise the profile of women in these industries, though with Gill Nowell at the helm of this campaign, probably one of the UK’s earliest EV advocates, I’m excited for what this initiative can achieve.
The facts also remain stark... According to the IEA, wages for women in energy businesses are 15-20% lower than their male equivalents. Likewise, consistent studies have found that women feel under-represented in leadership roles across the automotive industry. One Deloitte report from 2020 found that this was felt by 90% of women surveyed.
I cannot give out any jobs. However, as a publisher, I can work harder to champion women’s voices. So, my pledge for the launch of this campaign is simple: I am going to increase the number of female EV industry voices quoted and featured in this newsletter. I’ll also be plugging this campaign in the run-up to its launch on the 10th of February.
Want to get involved? If you or your organisation is interested to learn more or would like to become a Founding Partner, you can drop Gill a message on LinkedIn. Or, why not sign up for the launch event in London (here).
