Charging on the Public Network

The UK has one of the largest public charging networks in Europe, with over 17,000 chargepoint connectors available. There are now more public charge points in the UK than there are petrol stations, which should give you some confidence regarding making those longer trips. There are different types of charger available, to suit differing requirements:

Fast Chargers

Fast Charger usually take between 4 to 7 hours to fully charge your car, are usually found at destination locations – such as hotels, city centre car parks, and shopping centres.

The vast majority are “untethered” - meaning you'll need to provide your own charging cable to use them.

Rapid Chargers

Charge your car to 80% in as little as 30 mins, rapid chargers available at 96% of motorway service stations. This means that you can have a break on long journeys whilst it recharges.

Rapid Chargers have fixed connector cables - meaning you won't need to bring your own.

Most Nissan dealers, and almost all motorway services in the UK have Rapid chargers which are capable of charging the battery from 0-80% in as little as 30 minutes. If you buy a Nissan LEAF or eNV200, then you can use the chargers at any Nissan dealership in the UK for free (subject to a fair use policy of 3 times per week).

There is a very good website called “Zap Map” which documents the location of all chargers in the UK, together with details of any access cards or payment required. I won’t try to reinvent the wheel with this one – just head over to their website, or download their mobile phone app, and check it out yourself.