Electric Highway acquisition is a game changer in UK electric car charging!
The UK’s first all-electric forecourt has acquired the world’s first national charging network. The first real sign of mass market electric car customer needs being placed at the forefront of charging infrastructure.
In December 2020, the UK’s first all-electric forecourt opened in Braintree, Essex. This marked the first of about 100 forecourts to be built by operator Gridserve across the country over the next 5 years — and introduced an attractive electric forecourt facility to a market screaming for an improved customer offering in the public charging infrastructure field.
This week, Hitachi-backed Gridserve upped the ante on its bet on the growth of mass market electric car charging demand, by announcing it had acquired the Electric Highway — for a deal believed to be ‘tens of millions of pounds’ including a sizeable investment that will pour into the network’s aging charging facilities.
The Electric Highway, started in 2011 by Ecotricity, was a true pioneer in public charging infrastructure — initially offering slow 3-pin charging facilities to electric cars along various motorway service stations, it now boasts of charging facilities that include rapid charge points up to 350kW. However, limitations in attracting sizable capital required to upgrade the network has seen electric car users over the years increasingly complain about outages, the limitations of unreliable app-based and membership card accessibility and need for more rapid charge stations.
The need for investment in public and longer-distance electric vehicle charging is a priority also for the UK government, with an aim to have at least 6 superfast or rapid charging stations at each motorway service area by 2023 — a key part of its aims in phasing out non-electric vehicle sales over this decade.
As the race now moves on to this second generation of rapid charging infrastructure roll-out, the race for space is very much on (rapid and ultra rapid charging points make up only 18% of the UK’s public charging facilities).
With big institutional capital now flowing into the space in addition to the increasing interest by ‘Big Oil’ in the space (did anyone else notice Total’s name change last month to ‘TotalEnergies’?), the dawn of a new age of consumer-focused electric forecourt players such as Gridserve and Dutch peer Fastned (with similar plans in the UK) looks set to make a huge impact in the space.
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ChargeBound is a company dedicated to encouraging UK drivers to go electric. Our mission is to eliminate car passenger emissions in the UK and get us closer to being carbon neutral. To find out more about what we do check out ChargeBound’s website and the solutions we are creating to make a change.
Photo owned by Gridserve.
