Gridserve completes upgrade of Electric Highway network in just 10 months

Gridserve has completed upgrading the old Ecotricity Electric Highway motorway charging network, just 10 months after buying the business.

Since June 2021, Gridserve has replaced more than 300 medium-power Electric Highway chargers, some dating back to 2007, at more than 130 motorway service areas run by Extra, Moto, Roadchef, Welcome Break and Westmorland. New rapid chargers – including some 350kW machines – now provide contactless card payment, 24-hour support, and real-time status updates.

Gridserve says work continues to drive the motorway high power charging experience to the next level. The company has already installed three High Power Electric Hubs at Swansea, Exeter and Burton-in-Kendal, which consist of six or more high power chargers. A further nine of these are currently under construction.

The Electric Hubs have chargers capable of speeds up to 350kW. The sites are on major arterial routes in south Wales, south-west and north-west England. The 350kW chargers can deliver up to 100 miles of range in less than 10 minutes.

This month also sees the start of the roll out of the dual charging feature on the medium power chargers on the GRIDSERVE Electric Highway. This improvement enables multiple connectors to be used at the same time, on a single charger, doubling the number of cars that can charge at once at those locations.

Gridserve CEO Toddington Harper said: “As an early adopter of electric vehicles myself, the Electric Highway network played an essential role in enabling me to make the switch. However those days are long gone and Gridserve’s focus is delivering an EV charging network fit for purpose to support the mass-market transition to electric vehicles.”

Harper said Gridserve Electric Highway had achieved the highest customer satisfaction rating in the network’s 10-year history in Zap-Map’s consumer survey.