Tech-enabled sustainable energy firm Gridserve has upgraded all its medium powered EV chargers across the Electric Highway, which it acquired 10-months ago.
Since June 2021, over 300 existing Electric Highway chargers at over 130 motorway service areas, run by Extra, Moto, Roadchef, Welcome Break and Westmorland, have been replaced by Gridserve. These new chargers now provide contactless card payment, 24-hour support and real-time status updates.
In addition to upgrading the medium power chargers, work continues to drive the motorway high power charging provision. Gridserve has already started to deliver new high power Electric Hubs, which consist of six or more high power chargers, with three of these new sites operational and a further nine currently under construction.
The Swansea, Exeter and Burton-in-Kendal Electric Hubs, with chargers capable of speeds up to 350kW, have transformed charging in these areas, Gridserve said. The sites are on major arterial routes in south Wales, south west and north west England, where 24 new chargers can deliver up to 100 miles of range in less than 10 minutes to those travelling to or passing through the locations.
This month also sees the start of the roll out of the dual charging feature on the medium power chargers on the Gridserve Electric Highway. This improvement enables multiple connectors to be used at the same time, on a single charger, doubling the number of cars that can charge at once at those locations, the operator added.
Gridserve CEO, Toddington Harper, said: “Gridserve’s focus is delivering an EV charging network fit for purpose to support the mass-market transition to electric vehicles. Following us commencing the upgrades in 2021, within a matter of months the Gridserve Electric Highway achieved the highest customer satisfaction rating in the network’s 10-year history in Zap-Map’s consumer survey.
“Headwinds caused by global supply chain issues, manufacturing and transportation delays, compounded with new contractual issues to work through, made completing our upgrade plans more challenging than we had initially anticipated, so we are really pleased to be able to celebrate this milestone today.”
