Earlier today (21 April), GRIDSERVE announced the opening of its latest Electric Forecourt in Norwich, featuring 36 EV chargers, 22 of which offer charging speeds of up to 350kW
And at many MSA, GRIDSERVE offer a paltry single charger. And when they offer more than one, often only half can be used because the connection to the grid is only sufficient to allow one to be used at a time.
Maybe it’s confirmation bias because the vast majority of my en-route charging is done at MSA, but I’ve detoured to some of these hubs with 8-16-more charging bays and they’ve been completely empty, and yet on the M1 I’ve had to queue, on occasion upwards of an hour, for the single working charger. It just seems to me they are plonking down chargers wherever they can in order to grab market share. And I’d bet the MSA takes a cut from charging (or charges rent on the parking spaces), making those sites less profitable – just my theory of course.
Personally, I’d like to see either doubled up chargers in most MSA (and when multiple chargers are available, that they can be used simultaneously), or upgrade every 3rd or 4th MSA with a large hub.
FWIW, I know there is a large hub just off the M1 near Milton Keynes, with maybe 12-15 chargers spread across BP pulse and Ionity. Last two times I tried there though, ALL of them were offline.