Tesco is the UK’s best supermarket for electric car chargepoints, according to a study by Electrifying.com.
The research, which excluded ‘express’ and ‘local’ stores, found the retail giant has chargepoints at 45% of its stores, closely followed by Morrisons (40%). Meanwhile, nearly one-in-five (19.7%) Asda stores have at least one place to plug in, followed by Lidl (15%), Aldi (10%) and Sainsbury’s (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.”
This was underlined in a recent poll by Electrifying.com, the UK Department for Transport and the AA, which found that 72% of drivers would be more likely to consider buying an electric car if there was more opportunity to charge at supermarkets.
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As well as having the highest percentage of stores with at least one chargepoint, Tesco was also rated best for the average number of chargepoints per store, with 1.87 chargers per supermarket site – despite fewer than 50% of stores having at least one place to plug in.
In December 2019, Volkswagen 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.”
Several other supermarkets have entered partnerships with charge point suppliers to increase their offering. 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.”
Elsewhere, Waitrose is set to extend its partnership with Shell and roll out 800 new chargepoints in 100 Waitrose locations by 2025.
