BT has abandoned its strategy to crook greenish thoroughfare cabinets into electrical conveyance (EV) charging points having completed lone 1 of the 60,000 conversions it initially said it was aiming for.
The metallic cases, seen connected streets astir the UK, are usually utilized for telephone and broadband cables.
When it announced the task successful April 2024, BT said repurposing the cabinets was a "unique opportunity" to code a "key barrier" to radical switching distant from petrol and diesel cars.
However, the strategy has present been scrapped with the steadfast saying it volition beryllium focussing connected "the Wi-Fi connectivity situation surrounding EV's" instead.
"It's disappointing that it's not going to proceed," Stuart Masson from automotive website The Car Expert told BBC News.
"The bully quality that we are seeing successful the manufacture is that the wide rollout of electrical charging points is accelerating faster than had been predicted a mates of years ago," helium added.
However, helium said that astir of the charging points are successful busier areas alternatively than connected streets nearer to people's homes, meaning BT's determination was inactive a setback.
Mr Masson welcomed its pledge to amended wi-fi infrastructure astir EV charging points.
"It's precise frustrating erstwhile you crook up to a charging constituent you, spell to log into the app... and you can't get a transportation due to the fact that you're buried successful a multi-storey car parkland determination and there's nary signal," helium said.
"If BT tin marque a dent successful that past that would beryllium truly good."
Many greenish cabinets are coming towards the extremity of their lifespans arsenic BT upgrades to fibre broadband.
But lone 1 of them, successful East Lothian, was ever really turned into a nationalist charging point.
It volition present adjacent successful February, according to The Fast Charge newsletter, which broke the story.
The charger presently shows arsenic "out of order" connected the Evve Charge app, which shows the locations of EV chargers successful the UK.
East Lothian Council has been contacted for comment.
A BT Group spokesperson said the proceedings tested "a large woody astir the challenges that galore on-street EV drivers are facing with charging and wherever BT Group tin adhd astir worth to the UK EV ecosystem."
They added: "Other emerging needs we've identified see the wi-fi connectivity situation surrounding EV's - our pilots volition present displacement successful absorption to research this further."
The authorities has acceptable a people of 300,000 nationalist charging points by 2030.
Its ain statistic amusement determination are 73,334 nationalist charging devices successful the UK - a 37% summation connected a twelvemonth ago.
Nearly a 3rd of these are successful Greater London, according to EV charging institution Zapmap.