Sainsbury’s has announced that it has set up its own electric car charging company, and aims to have chargers installed at more than 100 locations by the end of 2024.
Known as Smart Charge, Sainsbury’s is the first UK supermarket to launch its own brand chargers, rather than relying on partnerships with external companies. Tesco and Lidl, for example, use Pod Point chargers at their stores, with Morrisons and Waitrose having similar deals with external companies.
Sainsbury’s says it will be installing ultra-rapid EV chargers in the car parks of its stores, which can rapidly top up electric cars at up to 300kW. This is the quickest form of charging and means that many electric cars can be topped up sufficiently in around half an hour.
The supermarket says it will roll out the chargers at ‘more than 100 stores’ by the end of 2024, which will feature 750 separate charging bays. Sainsbury’s says this will put it in the ‘top five providers of ultra-rapid charging in the UK’.
A study by Sainsbury’s of 500 electric car users found that 80 per cent admit to ‘avoiding’ longer journeys because of not wanting to charge at public units, with the company believing its Smart Charge company ‘represents a game-changer’.
Patrick Dunne, Sainsbury’s director of property, procurement and EV ventures, said: “With our new network of easy-to-use and reliable charging points conveniently located in our supermarkets, Smart Charge will make a real difference to EV drivers in the UK.
“As one of the few providers to be focusing exclusively on cutting-edge ultra-rapid 150kW+chargers, customers can be in and out in as little as half an hour and avoid waiting longer with less powerful alternatives.”
Sainsbury’s says that its electric car chargers are powered by the ‘same 100 per cent renewable electricity’ as the rest of its business. The first 20 charging hubs have already been installed in locations such as Richmond, West London, Harrogate and Newport.
According to chargepoint mapping service Zap-Map, at the end of 2023 there were almost 54,000 electric car chargers at 31,000 locations, with this representing a 45 per cent increase compared to the previous year.