Lidl charging hub shows why van-friendly public charging needs more than a fast charger

Source charging points in a car park.

Source has opened its first EV charging hub at a Lidl GB store, with one feature making it particularly relevant to commercial fleets.

The Birstall site in West Yorkshire has 12 charging bays, 10 of which are suitable for commercial vehicles, with maximum charging power of 320kW. It sits close to junction 27 of the M62.

For van fleets, physical accessibility remains an important but sometimes overlooked element of the charging problem.

A chargepoint can have sufficient power but still be of limited use if a long-wheelbase vehicle cannot manoeuvre comfortably into the bay or reach the cable.

That means headline public-charger numbers do not necessarily tell commercial operators how much infrastructure is actually usable by their fleet.

Retail locations could help fill that gap by allowing drivers to combine charging with breaks or other activities already built into the working day.

For fleet managers, the sensible question is how many their vehicles can realistically use instead of just the headline number of how many chargers there are.

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