The use of public electric vehicle charge points dropped hugely after they stopped becoming free to use.

The council has installed more than 300 charge points across the city to support people switching to electric vehicles.

A tariff was introduced in April 2023 to raise cash to support the running cost and installing the infrastructure.

READ NEXT: Work to start on busy Glasgow East End streets costing £8m

Since then, it has been noticed that there have been thousands fewer plug-ins as vehicles can be charged cheaper at home or in other council areas.

In effect, Glasgow was subsidising motorists from outside the city with free electricity.

It costs £1 connection fee and then 40p per kwh for standard charging up to 70p kwh for rapid charging to charge up at one of the points.

The council estimated there could be a drop of as much as 50% when a fee was introduced.

The actual drop, however, was higher and rates have continued to fall to a drop of more than 80% in just over a year.

READ NEXT: Council to spend more than £1m on new electric car fleet

In March 2023 there were 21,062 plug-ins to an EV charge point.

By June 2023, three months later, it had fallen to 6755.

The latest figures, for June 2024, show it has fallen even further to 2976 plug-ins.

It is thought that many people were driving into Glasgow from outside for work or leisure and using the free charging, and now they find it is cheaper to charge at home or in their own council area.

In a report to councillors, George Gillespie, executive director of neighbourhoods, said: “While there are some seasonal variations to be expected, with a slight increase in demand during the winter months in response to the effect of the cold on EV batteries and more energy being required for driving in adverse weather, the usage of EVCI remains significantly lower following introduction of the tariff of charges.

“Whilst there was an expectation that usage of public EVCI would drop following the introduction of a tariff, drop off rates have been steeper than those experienced elsewhere locally.

“It is surmised that this is due to Glasgow having higher volumes of traffic commuting into the city for retail, work, and leisure.”

He added: “With a significant volume of data now available for analysis it can be reasonably concluded that the majority of users had been accessing free EV charging in Glasgow but have off-street parking at home with the ability to access cheaper EV charging rates or, are charging locally where they stay out with Glasgow.”