Roadside Assistance And The Electric Vehicle

Last checked 31 August 2026

When we first wrote about this, the question was whether the patrols would be ready for electric cars at all. That question has been answered. There are now more than two million fully electric cars on UK roads, around a quarter of new cars sold are battery electric, and the breakdown providers deal with EVs every day. What is interesting in 2026 is how wrong most people still are about what goes wrong with them.

Running Out Of Charge Is Now Rare

The assumption is that EV drivers break down because the battery goes flat. The data says otherwise, and has done for years.

That is a fall of roughly 85% in a decade, and the AA has said that around half of even those remaining calls are not drivers who are actually stranded — they are drivers who panicked about reaching the next charger. More range, more chargers and, frankly, more experience have between them all but removed the failure mode everybody worried about.

What Actually Goes Wrong

Roughly a third of EV faults are exactly the same faults petrol and diesel cars suffer:

• The 12V battery. Electric cars still have a conventional 12V battery running the lights, locks, computers and the contactors that wake the main pack. When it dies the car is as dead as any other car with a flat battery — and it is the single most common EV callout.
• Tyres and wheels. Punctures and kerb damage, as ever. EVs are heavy and many are sold without a spare, which makes a damaged tyre more likely to need recovery rather than a roadside fix.
• Software and warning lights. A fault code or a failed update stopping the car from starting or charging.
• Charging equipment. Connectors, cables and home units, rather than the car itself.

The Patrols Caught Up Some Time Ago

Both major providers now train their patrols in high-voltage work — isolating and reinstating the electrical system so a vehicle can be worked on or recovered safely. The AA says more than 98% of its patrols hold that qualification and that it attended over 190,000 EV breakdowns in 2025.

The most telling number is the fix rate. In the second quarter of 2026 the AA resolved 88.4% of EV callouts at the roadside, against 84.6% for petrol and diesel. Electric cars are now slightly more likely to be sorted where they stand than conventional ones. Fewer moving parts turns out to cut both ways.

Mobile charging exists but matters less than the headlines suggested. The RAC’s van-mounted EV Boost unit adds around ten miles of range in half an hour — enough to reach a charge point, not to fill the car. Given how few callouts are actually out-of-charge, it is a useful tool rather than a central one.

Why An EV Goes On A Flatbed

An electric car generally cannot be towed with its driven wheels on the road. There is no gearbox to decouple the motor, so turning those wheels spins the motor and generates current with nowhere sensible to go — which can damage the motor, the inverter or the pack. Manufacturers are blunt about it: flatbed only.

That is why both the AA and the RAC invested in all-wheels-up recovery rigs that lift every wheel clear of the road. The same kit is why heavy 4x4s and hybrids stopped being a problem. Nothing about this should cost you extra — but it is worth checking that a cheap policy actually includes recovery, because an EV that cannot be fixed on the spot has to go on a truck.

Charging Infrastructure Now

There were around 119,000 public charging devices in the UK at the start of April 2026, including roughly 27,000 rated at 50kW or above, and the total passed 121,000 by mid-year. Growth is running at about 10% a year overall, with ultra-rapid chargers the fastest-growing category and on-street charging expanding for drivers without a driveway.

Against a government target of 300,000 public chargers by 2030, that is around 40% of the way there — so the argument has moved on from whether chargers exist to whether they are in the right places and working when you arrive.

Does EV Cover Cost More?

Where The Deadlines Stand

New pure petrol and diesel cars cannot be sold in the UK from 2030, with full hybrids and plug-in hybrids allowed to continue until 2035. A consultation on the interim annual targets manufacturers must hit runs until late October 2026, but the 2030 and 2035 end dates themselves are not in question. Second-hand petrol and diesel cars can be bought and sold indefinitely.

Sales are running behind the mandate — battery electric cars were around a quarter of the market in the first half of 2026 against a 33% target — but the direction is settled. Any provider that is not ready for electric vehicles by now has left it far too late.