“It gets busy from late afternoon when people are returning from work or ‘filling up’ for the next day. “You’ve come at the wrong time,” he said. However, when we dropped by, just one charge post was in use while, under the main canopy, the pumps were busy dispensing ye olde fossil fuel like it was going out of fashion (which it is).Īt that charge post was a Tesla, whose owner wouldn’t give his name but did say he was an Uber driver. Shell’s Holloway Road service station, location of the first Shell EV charge point, now boasts two 50kW chargers serving around 200 customers per month. Things are definitely improving for EV drivers.” He says: “Now, instead of parking up at some place with no amenities and twiddling my thumbs while the battery is charged, I’ll be able to have a coffee and catch up on some shopping.

In his enthusiasm for electric cars, Walters thinks nothing of driving from his home near Egham, in Surrey, to Scotland so welcomes more EV chargers at service stations located on A-roads, such as Shell plans to establish. The upmarket snack range will feature in Shell’s Fulham EV-only service station, highlighting that the forecourt of tomorrow is expected to be more than simply a recharging destination. So that’s the car’s battery taken care of, but while you’re waiting, you can recharge yourself with a ‘Jamie Oliver deli by Shell’ sarnie.

As they do now, all of Shell’s chargers will dispense renewable electricity. Meanwhile, by the end of 2020, the company plans to have three 350kW chargers in operation, eclipsing Tesla’s 250kW V3 Superchargers. These rapid and ultra-rapid chargers are in addition to the large network of fast chargers available on local roads that are managed by Shell’s NewMotion charging division. Going forward, all of its new or upgraded chargers will be ultra-rapid. By 2021, it plans to have a combination of 200 rapid (50kW) and ultra-rapid (150kW) chargers on forecourts located on major routes across the UK. Shell unveiled its first 50kW EV rapid-charging post, capable of recharging a battery from zero to 80% in 30 minutes, at its Holloway Road service station in north London in October 2017.

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