Aldi will equip all its supermarkets with charging points for electric cars by the end of next year. The discounter announced this on Tuesday. More and more retailers are offering customers the opportunity to charge their car.
Aldi is installing a total of 900 charging points throughout the country. By the end of 2024, charging points will be found at each of the supermarket chain’s 440 stores. These will be both slow and fast chargers. “More than half of our charging infrastructure will consist of fast chargers,” says Alana Lorré, energy & sustainability manager at Aldi Belgium.
The discounter wants to offer its customers an extra service and make the combination of shopping and electric charging easier. This will be possible at a ‘market rate’, according to the discounter.
For the rollout, the chain is joining forces with the Belgian start-up Pluon, a manufacturer of charging stations from Dilsen-Stokkem.
READ ALSO. Why can’t an electric car charge itself while driving?
“Win win situation”
Aldi thus joins a whole host of retail chains that offer customers the opportunity to charge their electric car while shopping. For example, discounter Lidl was one of the first chains to offer customers this option. In the meantime, Delhaize and Colruyt subsidiary DATS 24 have announced the rollout of charging points.
And that is good news for those who drive electrically, says Jochen De Smet of EV Belgium, the federation for electric mobility in our country. It’s a win-win situation, it sounds. Supermarkets attract customers with the charging points and can make better use of their parking lots, while those who drive electric will find more options for charging.
Even though cars are mainly charged at home and at work – accounting for 80 percent of charging movements according to studies – the charging points at supermarkets are a good addition, says De Smet. “We are definitely going to need them.” The electric mobility sector assumes that half of the newly registered cars will be electric next year.
According to EV Belgium, the supply of charging points is increasing rapidly, and this will have a favorable effect on charging prices in the long term.
