Zipcar breaks 1,000 electric vehicle milestone

Zipcar UK has broken the 1,000 electric vehicle (EV) milestone as it works towards being fully electric by 2025.

It means almost a third of its fleet is now electric after doubling its EV fleet in the past 10 months.

James Taylor, general manager of Zipcar UK, said: “Our electric fleet is rapidly expanding and reaching 1,000 EVs is a big moment for us, making ours the largest EV fleet in any car-sharing service in the UK.

“We’re constantly looking to the future of car ownership in London and beyond, and as a community we need to find more sustainable transport solutions that will support people’s individual needs and preferences.

“Reaching this milestone is a huge step in our journey to becoming fully electric by 2025, providing motorists with affordable and sustainable travel and car sharing options, without the hassle and cost of privately owning a car.”

Raw Charging strikes charge point deal with National Trust

Raw Charging has agreed a deal with the National Trust to install electric vehicle (EV) charging for visitors. 

Most chargers will be AC destination chargers allowing visitors to charge for half a day while visiting National Trust’s estates, houses and gardens.

However, DC rapid charging hubs will be made available at a small number of National Trust places where the visit time is shorter than standard, or if the location is convenient for drivers to charge during a short break from longer journeys.

Once complete, the rollout is expected to be one of Raw’s largest, investing up to £12 million in the project. 

Bruce Galliford, CEO of Raw Charging, said: “We’re looking forward to working with the National Trust to roll out EV charging across their places in the UK.

“This is one of the largest schemes we have worked on, and we are investing over £12m in the sites as we continue to deliver reliable and affordable EV charging across the UK.”

Edward Wood, head of facilities management at the National Trust, added: “Installing EV charging points across our nationwide portfolio of places will help build the infrastructure needed to support the transition away from petrol and diesel and support us to fulfil our charitable purpose of caring for special places for everyone, for ever.”

Raw has recently launched charging facilities at the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet York, Crown Point Shopping Park in Leeds and has announced plans for a new ChargeYard in Oxford as part of a sponsorship with Oxford City Football Club.

Raw has also launched the Charge Yard facility in Slough and is exclusively working with Greene King to install EV Charging across their sites in the UK.

Norwich Electric Forecourt helps increase EV uptake 

Norwich Electric Forecourt has powered more than two million electric vehicle (EV) miles - enough to travel around the world 80 times – in its first year of operation. 

For the past 12 months, Norwich Electric Forecourt has been open to visitors to charge their cars, test drive the latest EVs or send a parcel with the local post office.

It boasts 36 EV chargers, including 22 350kW-capable high-power chargers.

Toddington Harper, CEO and founder of Gridserve, said: “It’s been an awesome first year for Norwich Electric Forecourt.”

In 2021, Norwich and the wider East of England region had low EV charger coverage compared to other regions in the UK – offering just 29 chargers per 100,000 people compared to the UK average of 42 per 100,000.

This has now been improved to 37 per 100,000 across the region, and it’s even better in Norfolk with 48 chargers per 100,000 people.

Gridserve says its Electric Forecourts have been demonstrated to increase EV uptake in surrounding areas by giving drivers confidence to make the switch to electric.

Since opening, Norfolk has seen an uptake in EV registrations, growing by almost 50% – ahead of the UK average.  

Liberty Charge rebrands to Believ

Liberty Charge has rebranded as Believ to better reflect its proposition of being able to offer all charging speeds and to mark its launch into the business sector.

Perran Moon, chief marketing officer, said: “Increasing the pace of the UK’s EV charging infrastructure roll out is essential because we are currently falling short in delivering the Government’s ambition of installing 300,000 publicly-accessible charge points by 2030. Speed is therefore of the essence.

“Believ holds large stock volumes of charge points capable of delivering all speeds, meaning we’re able to deploy at scale and at pace.”

He continued: “As our customers already know, our end-to-end charge point service comes at zero cost – we manage all planning, installation and ongoing maintenance with no reliance on public or external funding.

“We remain part of Liberty Global and Zouk Capital, with Virgin Media O2 as our delivery partner, so we continue to have the scale, capacity and financial backing to roll out charging networks as quickly as they’re needed.” 

Rolec EV named charging partner

Farnborough International has named Rolec EV as the official charging partner for the Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre.

An initial order of 18 22kW fully branded charge points has been placed with Rolec, which will also be providing load balancing across two of the visitor car parks to offer a fully scalable solution, with plans to roll out additional charge points across the site in the future

Frankie Mellon, sales director at RolecEV, said: “Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre have been actively providing a platform for the EV industry for years; hosting events such as Fully Charged Live – the world’s number one home energy and EV show – as well as ITT Hub and the British Motor Show, and we’re excited to be officially working with them now, and in the future, to deliver reliable EV charging to their visitors.”