London’s network of electric vehicle charging points is growing with the announcement that supermarket giant Asda is joining rivals Sainsbury’s and Tesco in installing recharge stations at stores.
Asda launched its first charging points in association with ChargeMaster last week at its Roehampton store, and follows Sainsbury’s roll out of EV charging for shoppers announced a year ago.
The supermarkets are part of a consortium that includes Transport for London, utility companies, car rental companies and local authorities that has pledged to install 7,500 electric vehicle charging points around the capital by 2013 using its own and government funding.
As well as Asda’s Roehampton store, there will be two charging bays each at stores in Dagenham, Wembley, Colindale and Kingston Upon Thames which will offer free recharging for customers.
Asda has also set up two charging points at its headquarters in Leeds.
A spokeswoman for Asda said: “We’ll be monitoring feedback from customers and if they are well used we will introduce charging points at other stores.”
Chargemaster’s stations are networked to a central server and will enable Asda to view real time information across all of the charging points, including measuring the electricity used, the number of customers using them, forecasting future usage and identifying busy times.
Julian Walker-Palin, head of corporate sustainability at Asda, said: “Our new charging points offer a greater choice to customers in how they travel to stores. We’re starting off small, but we have the capacity to go large.
“We will also be analysing EV usage and energy consumption, allowing us to keep our finger on the pulse, ensuring that we continue to provide the right facilities for all of our shoppers.”
David Martell, chief Executive from Chargemaster, said: “Increasingly supermarkets are meeting the needs of owners of electric vehicles and we are pleased to be at the forefront of this.”
Sainsbury’s began opening EV charging bays at some of its stores in London earlier this year, while Tesco also has them at a few sites in London as well at its ‘zero carbon’ story in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.
A Tesco spokesman said charging points could be rolled out at other stores if demand for them justified it.
Compareiseasy - 09/12/2010 11:55
What we need is for every parking space at a supermarket car park to offer EV charging facilities as it takes about 15-20 minutes to charge an EV to 80% capacity. 10 EV charging spaces at one location would provide capacity for a maximum 720 charges a day on a 24 hour basis. Whose going to go at 3.00AM in the morning to charge their car, so its probably more like 450 a day? If there was a charging point at every parking space (like a boat marina) you could then do your shopping and your car will be charged when you come out of the supermarket. The first supermarket to offer 100% EV charging points at all their spaces, in conjunction with a vehicle offering perhaps from an EV manufacturer i.e. drive a "Tesco/Asda Nissan Leaf" for £XXX for example, could clean up and lead the way in EV demand, rather than "wait and see what happens". Otherwise I think there will be big queues if there are not enough charging points and if you have to charge your car at home all the time, it will stifle demand for EVs. Discuss.............?