In March, Gridserve announced that it was building an electric vehicle (EV) only service station in Southeast England’s Braintree, Essex and that it would be ready by this summer. The Coronavirus has slowed down construction but not by much, as it’s nearly complete and set to open in the next few months.
Gridserve, who is leading the construction of the EV service station, recently announced more details on what services will be available at the station and what it will look like, including:
- 30 on-site charging devices (24 regular EVs chargers, and 6 Tesla Superchargers.)
- The chargers are high-powered, with a peak power of 350kW, allowing EV drivers to add hundreds of miles of range in under 30 minutes.
The EV station is designed for the future. Most EVs currently aren’t able to take advantage of 350 kW of power; the Porsche Taycan can and a few others, but not many. However, EVs of the future will undoubtedly be able to take advantage of that full power.
As EV drivers are charging their vehicles, they can walk around the service station’s shops, buy a new book from WHSmith, and learn more about EVs at the education center. They can grab a coffee or pastry at the station’s Costa Coffee shop, send a letter or package via the Post Office, or even run on the treadmill at the gym while the kids play in the kid’s section. That’s not all! The station will also include business pods, free Wi-Fi, and of course, bathrooms.
This won’t be Gridserve’s only EV-only station. Over the next five years, the company plans to build at least another 100 sites across the UK, as part of a £1 billion (roughly US$1.3 billion) investment into the country’s EV charging infrastructure.
