Tesco is best supermarket for electric vehicle charge points

Tesco is the UK’s best supermarket for electric car charge points a study by Electrifying.com has found.

The reasearch, which excluded ‘express’ or ‘local’ stores, found the retail giant has charge points at 45% of its stores, closely followed by Morrisons (40%).

Nearly one-in-five (19.7%) Asda stores have at least one place to plug in, Lidl 15%, Aldi 10%, while Sainsbury’s trails its rivals at 7.2%.

Ginny Buckley, founder of Electrifying.com, said: “We expected more supermarkets to be doing better, but it’s still great to see how some of them have recognised that offering shoppers reliable car charging is not only good for business but will also help give the nation confidence to make the switch.

“Providing charging infrastructure at convenient locations is crucial to encourage drivers to go electric sooner, particularly the significant number that don’t have access to off-street parking.”

Many supermarkets have entered partnerships with charge point suppliers to increase their offering.

In December 2018, Volkswagen announced it had partnered with Tesco and Pod Point to install around 2,400 charging points for electric cars.

In April this year, the partnership provided its 500,000th free top-up – the equivalent of three million kWh of electricity.

Louise Goodland, head of retail partnerships at Tesco, said: “We are delighted to be recognised as the best supermarket for EV drivers in the UK.

“So far we’ve delivered more than 23 million miles worth of free, green charges and we’re continuing to roll out EV chargers to 600 Tesco stores across the UK.”

In October 2019, Morrisons unveiled its first 50 GeniePoint rapid charging points at its stores nationwide, with a further 50 planned last year.

A partnership between Pod Point and Lidl GB to install 350 rapid chargers by 2022 reached the 100th rapid charger milestone in February.

Lidl GB said “We are proud to offer rapid charging points for EVs at 130 of our stores.

“By 2022, we aim to have more than 350 stores with rapid charging points.”

Waitrose is set to extend its partnership with Shell and roll-out 800 new charge points in 100 Waitrose locations by 2025.

A Sainsbury’s spokesman added: “We have ambitious plans for our next generation of charging points. We want to offer charging points in more places and create a better customer experience.”

South East sees 42% increase in charge points

Research by UK Power Networks has found the number of EV charge points added to the network in London, the East and South East has increased by nearly 2,700 in the past 12 months.

There are now over 9,000 charge points in London, the East and South East, served by UK Power Networks.

Shira Lappin, innovation project lead at UK Power Networks, said: "It’s important that we work with local and central government, charge point operators, customers and other stakeholders to ensure that the transition to Net Zero is a seamless one and everyone has access to the charging infrastructure they need.

“In the 12-month period between April 2020 and April this year, the number of charge points in our areas grew by 42%. However, there’s still a lot of work to do to meet the growing demand for EVs and charge points, and we’ll continue to be at the forefront of innovation to get there.”