With restrictions easing and hospitality opening up, your thoughts may well have turned to where in the UK you can escape to once you’ve booked that precious time off work.
If this is the case, you’ll be pleased to hear that there are plenty of hotels across the country where you’ll be able to charge your electric vehicle (EV).
Indeed, of the more than 23,000 charging devices on Zap-Map, over 2,400 of them – as of April 2021 – are associated with hotels or very similar accommodation. That’s around 10% of all EV charging devices in the UK.
So what do we know about these hotels with electric car charging facilities? Which hotel brands should you look out for? Where in the country should you head to? And which networks provide the charging facilities? Well, lower down we’ve broken down some of the figures for you in a few different ways.
To find hotels with electric car charging points across the UK, navigate to Filters on Zap-Map, select Location types, choose Hotel / Accommodation and press Apply.
At the time of writing, there are more than 15,000 EV charging locations across the UK. Of those locations, 1,266 are associated with hotels or other accommodation.
You can find these charging locations up and down the UK. However, while their spread is relatively even, it’s worth noting that hotel charging locations in Northern Ireland, and counties such as Lincolnshire and Shropshire, are fewer and further between. Wales and the South West, in contrast, have a larger number of charge points located at hotels or other accommodation.
The South West has more hotels with electric car charging points than other regions.
Although the majority of hotels with electric car charging points are independent or part of small chains (1,021 locations), it’s worth looking at the larger chains to see which brand comes out on top.
The chart below shows the hotel brands with the highest number of charging locations in the UK.
As you can see from the chart, on Zap-Map some brands are much further ahead than others on the EV charging front.
Holiday Inn leads with 77 EV charging locations, followed by Best Western (64) and Premier Inn (26). At the other end of the scale, Marriott has four EV charging locations available on Zap-Map, behind Radisson Blu (six) and Travelodge (seven).
Looking ahead, Premier Inn will be one to watch here. In January, Whitbread – owner of the Premier Inn hotels – appointed ENGIE to install 1,000 50kW rapid chargers at its hotels around the UK, with 600 committed across 300 hotels over the next three years.
In terms of EV charging devices at hotels, the South West has the most, with 450. The South East isn’t far behind on 393, and Scotland currently has 259.
Interestingly, the top three regions have 1,102 hotel charging devices between them. That’s nearly 45% of the 2,400+ devices that are associated with hotels around the country (as of April 2021).
Of course, an important consideration for many EV drivers is the network that is providing the charging facilities.
While more than 30 charging networks offer EV charging at hotels, the share of these devices between the networks isn’t as even as you might think. The pie chart below splits out charging devices at hotels by network.
As the chart shows quite clearly, the Tesla Destination (862 devices) and bp pulse (341) networks account for just under half of all hotel charging devices. If you include the Tesla Supercharger network (130), the three together comprise 54.4% of hotel market share.
In fact, Tesla has partnered with a number of high-end hotels – the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath, for instance – to offer destination charging for guests, generally providing a standard Type 2 charge point for non-Tesla drivers too. bp pulse’s rollout of charge points includes Holiday Inn destinations. These – often rapid – charging devices are explicitly available for all to use, not only Holiday Inn customers.
Teslas charge at the Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall.
Charity ZeroNet, in third place (335 hotel charging devices), provides charge points for the hospitality and leisure sector. Most of its network, a total of 450 charging devices, is free for customers. Indeed, many – but not all – hotels and B&Bs provide free EV charging points for guests. If this is a priority, it’s worth checking on Zap-Map before you book.
More than 1,260 EV charging locations across the UK are associated with hotels.
Before you rush off to reserve your ‘staycation’ holiday in the sun – remember to check Zap-Map and, in particular, the user comments to get useful insights on the details of particular charge points. You could even leave one yourself, for the next guests who arrive.
Indeed, if you’re out and about and come across a new charge point at a hotel, let us know about it!