UK Supermarkets and EV Charging

In 2023, supermarkets across the UK added electric vehicle (EV) chargers to over 600 new locations, meaning drivers can now charge up at more than one-in-10 of their stores, analysis from Zapmap and the RAC shows.

The total number of supermarkets offering EV charge points rose by 59% last year – from 1,015 stores with charging facilities in 2022 to 1,616 in 2023. This equates to 13% of all 12,839 UK supermarkets, including those that don’t have parking facilities.*

Charger installations also increased by two-thirds (69%) with stores adding 1,195 new charging devices last year. This brought the total number from 1,721 in 2022 up to 2,916 by the end of 2023.

Within this total, 1,107 units installed were rapid or ultra-rapid, marking a huge increase of 145% from the 451 rapid chargers installed in 2022. Fortunately for electric car drivers, this means that over half (55%) of all supermarket EV locations now offer higher-powered charging capabilities.  

By the end of last year, 10% of all rapid and ultra-rapid chargers in the UK were based at supermarket locations – 1,107 units out of 10,967 across the country.

In the supermarket charging league, Sainsbury’s has seen the biggest year-on-year growth thanks to the launch of its ultra-rapid network Smart Charge. After installing just 53 units in 2022, the retailer nearly tripled its total device numbers in 2023 by adding 104 new chargers to its stores. Sainsbury’s had the highest average number of rapid chargers per location, at four units per store across the 22 shops that provided high-powered charging.

Meanwhile, Tesco is still leading the way as the biggest overall supermarket charging network. With 1,305 devices now in place across 4,859 shops, the retailer added 497 chargers to its stores last year. Consequently, Tesco has nearly 900 more devices than its nearest EV charging rival Morrisons, which has 413 chargers.

Although the number of Tesco sites with charging facilities increased by 50% year-on-year, rising from 412 stores to 617 at the end of 2023, only 10% (132) of its 1,305 devices were rapid or ultra-rapid. Just 12% of Tesco supermarkets have the capability to charge an EV at all, due to the size of its portfolio which includes many convenience stores without parking.

Moreover, the number of free EV charging points at Tesco locations has declined, with Pod Point’s 7kW and 22kW chargers at Tesco sites beginning to incur a cost as of November 2022.

Both Morrisons and Lidl take the top two consecutive spots for both the greatest proportion of chargers per estate and number of rapid chargers installed. Morrisons had 413 devices at 69% (344) of its 497 stores, 99% (342) of which had rapid devices. And this is only set to increase after ultra-rapid provider Motor Fuel Group acquired hundreds of the grocer’s forecourts in January.

Lidl also has 346 chargers at nearly a third (30%) of its 960 stores in 2023, with 91% (258) of the 285 EV locations offering rapid charging facilities.

Conversely, the data shows Asda uninstalled a large proportion of its devices after its contract ended with bp pulse, dropping by 72% from 165 in 2022 to just 46 in place through 2023. This represents a drop of 81% from the 246 devices it had installed in 2021 and leaves it with facilities at just 22 stores, only 2% of its entire estate. 

*Data and information from zap-map.com