Gridserve & Moto open another two Electric Super Hubs
Gridserve and Moto, a British motorway services operator, have opened two new ultra-rapid charging hubs in the UK. Calling these stops Electric Super Hubs, the sites at Moto Severn View and Heston are offering six and eleven High Power Chargers respectively, and form part of a network of hubs.
Gridserve claims the high-power chargers installed onsite are capable of delivering up to 350 kW, thus adding about 100 miles of range in ten minutes. The Moto Severn View and Heston locations have been chosen to provide energy to drivers in South Wales and the South West.
Toddington Harper, CEO of Gridserve, said these latest sites, along with the company’s Swansea hub mean that EV drivers could now “exclusively rely on Gridserve Electric Super Hubs to power them from London to Pembrokeshire or Pembrokeshire to London along the M4.”
Nationally, Moto and Gridserve say they have gone live with six sites this year which feature 53 new high-powered EV charging points in total. The Moto sites with Electric Super Hubs are as follows: Moto Rugby (12 chargers), Moto Swansea (6 chargers), Moto Exeter (12 chargers), Moto Burton in Kendal (6 chargers), Moto Thurrock (12 chargers), and the two new sites, Moto Severn View (6 chargers) and Moto Heston (11 chargers).
All Electric Super Hubs at Moto locations have both CCS and CHAdeMO connectors, accept contactless payments and provide at least one extra-wide accessible charging bay for every six EV charging spaces so the partners.
For Moto, CEO Ken McMeikan, the expansion confirmed their “ambition to open Ultra Rapid Charging Hubs at all of our Motorway Service Areas over the coming 12 months.” He added, that the roll-out was allowing Moto “to bring significant upgrades in power and charging facilities” at their sites.
Gridserve and Moto have inherited a longstanding partnership since Gridserve acquired Ecotricity’s Electric Highway network in June 2021. Moto had been a founding partner to Ecotricity’s advance dating back to 2013/17. Since the acquisition, Gridserve says it has invested “tens of millions of pounds” to develop the new Electric Hubs and replace the 300+ existing AC motorway chargers it took on from Ecotricity. The company reported completing the upgrade in April this year.
In addition, Gridserve has pledged in 2019 to open 100 so-called Electric Forecourts in the UK by 2025. These sites are even bigger and built for purpose since the company has teamed up with ChargePoint and engineering firm Arup to create these EV pit stops. They expect each location to include up to 24 ultra-fast charging bays, buffered by batteries and renewable energy installations. The promoters claim that stations will eventually be capable of handling 500 kW high power charging capacity and options for buses, trucks and other commercial vehicles.
To date, one Electric Forecourt is open at Braintree in Essex, another is scheduled to open at Gatwick Airport this autumn, and another in Norwich. Gridserve says it has already received planning permission for more sites, including Uckfield, Gateshead, Plymouth and Bromborough. Still, 100 such sites remain a long way to go.
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