If your thoughts have turned to where in the UK you can escape to once you’ve booked that precious time off work, you might be pleased to hear there are an increasing number of hotels with electric car charging points across the country.
Indeed, of the more than 45,000 charging devices on Zapmap, almost 3,100 of them – as of July 2023 – are associated with hotels or very similar accommodation. That’s around 7% 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 the Zapmap app or desktop map, select Location types, choose Accommodation and press Apply.
Where are the hotels with electric car charging points?
At the time of writing, there are almost 27,000 EV charging locations across the UK. Of those locations, around 1,640 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.
In contrast, the South West, South East (not including Greater London) and Scotland 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 areas.
The top 10 cities & towns for hotels with electric car charging in the UK
Zooming in a little to town level, the chart below highlights the top 10 cities and towns in the UK for EV charging locations associated with hotels.
Unsurprisingly, Greater London is comfortably in the lead, with 76 hotel locations where you can charge your electric car. In second and third place are York with with 17 locations and Cheltenham with 15.
At the other end, Belfast has 10 charging locations associated with hotels or other similar accommodation, although it is not far behind Windermere, King's Lynn and Nottingham, which each have 11.
It’s all to play for, however, because Birmingham (13 locations), Newquay (13) and Bournemouth (12) are not far ahead by any means.
Hotels with EV charging: Which brands have the most charging locations?
Although the majority of hotels with electric car charging points are independent or part of small chains (1,333 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, some brands are much further ahead than others on the EV charging front.
Holiday Inn leads with 85 EV charging locations, followed by Premier Inn with 71, and Best Western with 60. At the other end of the scale, Marriott has four EV charging locations available on Zapmap, behind Travelodge (eight) and Radisson Blu (eight).
Premier Inn continues to be the one to watch here, adding more than 30 charging locations at hotels since July 2022. Indeed, in 2021, 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 two years.
Which networks have EV charging devices at hotels?
Of course, an important consideration for many EV drivers is the network that is providing the charging facilities.
While around 40 charging networks offer EV charging at hotels, the share of these devices between the networks isn’t as even as you might think. The chart below splits out charging devices at hotels by network.
As the chart shows, the Tesla Destination network has the most EV charging devices at hotels, with 682. In second and third place are bp pulse and Pod Point, with 322 and 296 devices respectively. Interestingly, these three networks account for almost 42% of electric car charging devices at hotels.
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 fourth place (194 hotel charging devices), provides charge points for the hospitality and leisure sector. Much of its network, a total of almost 400 charging devices, is free for customers. Indeed, some hotels and B&Bs provide free EV charging points for guests. If this is a priority, it’s worth checking on Zapmap before you book.
At the other end of the scale, Zap-Pay partner GeniePoint operates 48 electric vehicle charging devices at hotels, behind the ChargePlace Scotland (73) and Tesla Public Supercharger networks (78).
Around 1,640 EV charging locations across the UK are associated with hotels.
And before you rush off to book your holiday – remember to check Zapmap 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.
Third party use: this data can be used by third parties as long as the source is attributed to Zapmap and, if online, a link is added back to https://www.zap-map.com.
