Looking for a place to charge your electric car?
You might find a charging point at your local supermarkets like Sainsbury's, Tesco, or Aldi. The number of supermarkets with electric vehicle (EV) chargers has gone up by 59% last year, with 1,616 stores offering them in 2023 compared to 1,015 in 2022. That means 13% of UK supermarkets now have chargers.
Over half of these supermarkets also offer fast charging. Some chargers can give your car an 80% charge in less than 10 minutes, the number of these fast chargers has grown by 145%, with nearly 3,000 EV chargers at supermarkets now.
Supermarkets are popular charging spots in the UK, even though motorway services are catching up.
About 35% of EV drivers stop at supermarkets to charge, fitting it into their weekly shopping routine.
The UK government is investing £185 million in more public charging points. This is part of a larger fund to help councils install charging points across the country. As of March, the UK had nearly 57,000 public chargers, up from 38,737 last year.
Tesco leads the supermarket charging network with 1,305 chargers across 4,859 stores. Morrisons and Lidl also have a good number of chargers, but Sainsbury's saw the biggest growth last year.
When it comes to fast charging, Morrisons and Lidl have more rapid chargers than Tesco. Only 10% of Tesco's chargers are fast chargers, and Asda has seen a decrease in its chargers by 72% due to a change in its partnership.