In last week’s round-up, we covered how Sainsbury’s was entering the UK EV charging market. This week, it’s Morrisons’ turn, albeit they’ll be selling their EV charging locations to Motor Fuel Group (MFG), the automotive arm of a US-based private equity group.
In a statement following the deal, Morrisons stated that part of the reasoning behind the move is to increase funding to the food side of their business. Despite this, Morrisons will still maintain a 20% share in the MFG group, maintaining a stake in the EV charging market.
MFG and Morrisons pledged in their statement that "value-for-money supermarket fuel will remain the offering on Morrisons forecourts".
All of this means there’ll be even more competition for network operators in the UK, with supermarket sites being some of the best places to deliver EV charging top-ups.
Despite supermarket charging placing in the top three locations for regular EV charging according to ZapMap’s annual insights report, figures showed a large drop off in usage of 14% between 2022 and 2023.
Increased investment looks to correct this drop, with commercial entities intent on the strength of the EV charging proposition to supermarkets. And with this investment only meaning that pricing becomes more competitive for the EV drivers using the services, perhaps we’re not far off from EV charging prices and experience playing a key role in deciding consumers’ regular supermarkets.