If you asked someone new to electric vehicles to picture charging an EV, they might imagine a charger at the back of a motorway service station car park potentially with snaking queues, with some chargers out of order amid growing demand.
But some companies are attempting to make the EV charging experience far smoother. A new era of electric charging is bringing some of the smartest, and most sustainable car re-filling experiences ever on offer.
Leading the charge is Griderserve – the award-winning sustainable energy company – who’s Electric Forecourts aim to make it as enjoyable and easy to recharge your own batteries as it is to charge your car’s.
Toddington Harper, chief executive, took us on a tour of Gridserve’s latest Electric Forecourt at Gatwick International Airport’s South Terminal.
Covered charging at Gatwick Gridserve is available 24/7 365 days of the year, with a direct customer service phoneline (no chatbots here) and ‘EV gurus’ on hand to help you out
What is an Electric Forecourt?
Gridserve Electric Forecourts are dedicated, undercover charging destinations with the latest renewable energy powered EV chargers.
Shopping, food and drink and business facilities, as well as test drives and EV information, are all under one sustainable roof.
Toddington tell us: ‘The name Electric Forecourt makes it easy for customers to understand what we offer, and explains the customer experience.’
How easy is the charging experience?
The first thing that hits you about Gridserve’s Gatwick site is how the state-of-the-art-facility is miles ahead of any petrol forecourt in terms of a clean and enjoyable experience.
The high-ceilinged outdoor charging area – made from sustainable materials – is futuristic, open and spotless.
Covered charging is available 24/7, 365 days a year, with a direct customer service phoneline (no chatbots here).
It has 22 High Power chargers (charging up to 350kW), four Low Power chargers (up to 22kW) and four Tesla Superchargers (up to 250kW). These devices are capable of adding 100 miles of charge in just five minutes.
And all Gridserve chargers are powered by 100 per cent renewable energy – part of Gridserve’s ‘sun-to-wheel’ ecosystem.
The charging process is very simple – there’s a reason Gridserve has five-star Google reviews.
Drive up to the charger of choice, tap your debit or credit card, plug in and charge. It’s genuinely that easy because every device uses contactless payment – no need for an app or account. You can even pay with your Apple Watch.
But the ‘EV Gurus’ really put the charging experience head and shoulders above others. These are experts who are on hand to show you the charging ropes and answer any electric car questions you might have on arrival.
They’re around from 4.30am to 10pm, seven days of the week – the same hours the hospitality and retail facilities are open.
‘You couldn’t get anything better than this in terms of a charging location for electric cars,’ Toddington confirms.
What hospitality is on offer inside the hub?
Of the three Gridserve Electric Forecourts already open – there are five more either already under construction or with approved planning permission – Gatwick is the smallest. But that doesn’t hold it back.
After grabbing a coffee from the Costa, I had my first AI shopping experience, picking up some crisps from the onsite Little Fresh convenience store.
Slightly surreally, I tapped in with a credit card, picked up my chosen ready salted Walkers and just walked out.
Little Fresh uses Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ technology to detect what the shopper does or doesn’t buy, creating a virtual shopping cart. When they leave the store, their choice of payment method gets charged – no queue waiting required.
Inside the Forecourt you can get food and drink at Costa, use the washroom facilities, do some work in the lounge area, make use of the free Wi-Fi or book a meeting room
If you need to grab essentials, the Little Fresh stores has Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology which allows to tap in with a contactless card, shop and then walk out – no checking out needed
Hot drink and snacks in-hand, the lounge area beckoned for a quick bit of work on the go. Free wi-fi throughout, there’s even a bookable meeting room if you want to take calls in private.
Making people comfortable and at-ease with the electric experience is Harper’s aim with the forecourts.
‘What we’re focused on is the customer experience. That’s what I think differentiates us from any other examples.
‘It’s all about making it easy. It’s about making providing a better experience than petrol and diesel’.
While you’re sat inside the hub waiting for your EV to charge, you can see the sustainability commitment Gridserve is making across its network every where you look.
Sustainability and clean energy – charge your car guilt free
Toddington says: ‘The majority of what we’re doing is Super Hubs. They work great and that’s why we’re charging almost 200,000 cars a month’. These high powered charging hubs are placed at key routes including big motorway service stations, so you can charge and go quickly and easily
Super Hubs are another part of Gridserve’s Electric Highway, alongside the Electric Forecourts. The entire Electric Highway offers 100 per cent renewable energy and is part of Gridserve’s much larger sustainability mission
The ‘sun-to-wheel’ ecosystem ‘allows Gridserve to deliver net zero transport that’s better for your pocket and planet,’ Toddington tells us.
Gridserve CEO Toddington Harper took us on a tour of Gatwick Electric Forecourt, telling us: ‘You couldn’t get anything better than this in terms of a charging location for electric cars’
All Electric Forecourts sit within the massive Gridserve Electric Highway – you’ll find Gridserve charge points across the UK, with Electric Super Hubs on key routes such as M1 services.
‘The majority of what we’re doing is Super Hubs. They work great and that’s why we’re charging almost 200,000 cars a month’, Mr Harper says.
Every EV driver charging on the Gridserve Electric Highway will use zero carbon energy that’s generated by large scale hybrid solar and battery farms.
And Gridserve promises ‘every kWh of energy used across its Electric Highway is replaced with a kWh of net zero energy – giving all EV drivers a reliable source of sustainable charging’.
From wastage minimising modular construction techniques, to vegetable oil powered generators to rainwater flushing loos – while you’re charging your EV, Gridserve is using incredibly innovative techniques to achieve its ambitious net zero targets.
The business has committed to ensuring a minimum of 10 per cent net gain in biodiversity at all Electric Forecourt sites, and it’s a true passion of Toddington’s.
‘As well as the global temperature rise, in the last 50 years, we’ve lost so many species – more than 70 per cent of the world’s wildlife. It’s extraordinary.
‘We use our solar farms to attract pollinators, we employ ecologists to plant wildflowers – we look at our land as an opportunity to protect nature.’
EV Test drive and leasing
Gridserve offers EV test drivers so I booked the MG4 at the Gatwick Electric Forecourt and took it for a spin. With the EV gurus on hand, you can find out about the full EV ownership experience as well as what the car is like to drive.
The majority of the Forecourt experience is tailored around charging, but you can learn as much as you’d like about EVs while you’re there too.
That’s because you can book a test drive in the EV showroom or online or talk to one of the team about leasing an EV.
I booked an MG4 for my test drive at Gatwick, taking it out on a pre-set route.
The MG4 is one of the cheapest electric cars you can buy in the UK, starting from £26,995.
It’s won countless awards because it offers families a lot of hatchback for the money, with excellent safety kit, tech and range across all trims and battery levels.
While it’s only a very short test drive, it’s still a very good way for someone new to electric cars to try out the EV ownership experience with experts on hand to guide you.
Gurus will walk you through everything from the specifics of the model you’ve chosen, to charging, regenerative braking (unique tech that uses wasted energy from braking to keep the battery topped up) and ownership costs.
The test drives and leasing are there to make it easy for motorists to go electric Toddington says.
‘We’re focusing on how we can add the most value to the UN goal of reducing emission by 43 per cent in six years.
‘Charging is our specialist area, which test drives and leasing complement – but it’s not on the same scale as the Electric Highway.’
Gridserve and Toddington are part of industry calls to reduce VAT on public charging from 20 per cent to five per cent (in line with home charging) to help the transition to electric and make it fairer for people who can’t charge at home. For companies like Gridserve it’s crucial to achieve profitability too
What’s Gridserve’s take on the electric future?
Toddington defines Gridserve as ‘a tech enabled sustainable energy business.’
He went on to explain: ‘It’s clear that around 25 per cent of the emissions in this country from road transport, and there’s a massive role that we can play in making that easier.’
But like many key industry players, Gridserve is calling on the Government to do more to help the transition and incentivise people to switch to electric cars.
Industry leaders said the Chancellor had ‘missed a massive opportunity’ to boost ailing electric car sales in the Spring Budget, by refusing to introduce more incentives to private EV buyers in the form of ‘fair taxes for a fair transition.’
‘We’re investing more money than we make currently – we’re not yet profitable – because the EV market is relatively quite small at the moment.
‘But we’re putting in infrastructure that’s future-proofed, so it’s not being used anywhere near its full potential at this moment in time.’
For businesses like Gridserve to reach profitability VAT needs to be cut on public charging from 20 per cent to five per cent, in-line with home charging VAT.
Toddington told us: ‘We want the cost of energy to be as attractive as it possibly can be. And the current situation is very unfair for drivers, unless you happen to be one of the lucky people who can charge with only five per cent VAT at home.
‘If VAT was five per cent on our network, then we would be significantly cheaper than diesel or petrol. The only reason that our pricing isn’t cheaper is because of that tax, and people don’t realise that.’
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