EV Fast Charging Infrastructure Expands at Stellantis Retailers in the UK
Following the announcement on 4th December, 2023 detailing the European rollout of fast charging stations at Stellantis Retailers across Europe, co-branded Free2move Charge, UK Retailers sign up to spearhead the deployment.
Chorley Group, based in the North-West of England, have selected two of their sites in Blackpool and Ormskirk to have rapid DC public chargers installed. Other Retailers include James Haugh, Dumfries and Wycliffe, Rugby. The Free2move Charge stations feature the latest technology from EDRI, including up to 300KW ultra-rapid chargers, with a total of 24 chargepoints being installed at these initial sites. Customers are able to pay for the charge using the Electroverse roaming app from Octopus Energy, which enables them to see key information such as nearby charge points, their availability and pricing.
The Chorley Group was founded as a family business in 1989 and has grown into an award-winning organisation operating internationally with sixteen key sites and eight franchises. Their Citroen site in Blackpool will offer customers six charging bays delivering over 900kWh of charging capacity. Whilst not quite enough to power the famous Blackpool Illuminations, they will certainly help the many visitors to the town charge their EV’s.
The chargers are planned to be operational at the sites by the end of 2024. Maria-Grazia Davino, Group Managing Director of Stellantis UK commented “Increasing the number of EV rapid chargers is critical to the acceleration of EV sales, enabling the customer to have a frictionless user experience. Our Free2move Charge ecosystem is there to support all drivers to always be charged. The rollout of the EDRI partnership will provide EV drivers with improved access to prime charging locations offered by the Stellantis Retailer network”.
EDRI’s UK’s Managing Director of Charging, Dev Chana, commented “EDRI’s partnership with Stellantis will enable us to quickly advance our rollout of ultra-rapid public chargers in the UK, providing customers with accessible and safe charging locations. Our collaboration here truly supports the much-needed consumer demand for increasing the availability of EV charging across the UK”.