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Why EV Drivers Choose Charging Destinations
EV drivers plan their journeys around where they can charge. Unlike petrol stops that take five minutes, a charging session fits naturally into a shopping trip, gym visit, or day out. Drivers look for sites with amenities they can use while their car charges in the background.
This changes how people choose where to go. A retail park with chargers pulls in drivers who might otherwise go to a competitor. A leisure centre with charging gives members another reason to visit. The charger becomes part of the experience, not a separate errand.
The behaviour behind the numbers is simple. A driver on a charge has 45 to 90 minutes to fill, on your site, within walking distance of your tills. Coffee, food and browsing absorb charging time naturally, which is why the strongest results come from venues with something to do while the battery fills.
The Dwell Time Effect
Longer visits mean more spending. Savills and Pod Point analysed 76 charge points across 29 UK retail locations and found visitors using the chargers stayed 1.5 to 2 hours, compared with under an hour for a typical visit. That is up to 50% more time in your venue, from the customers best placed to spend it.
At leisure centres and gyms, a 90 minute session gives a fast charger enough time to add meaningful range. Members charge while they exercise. The car is ready when they are. At outlet villages and garden centres, dwell times of 3 hours or more match perfectly with a full destination charge.
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Revenue Beyond Charging Fees
Charging revenue is only part of the picture. The real value is in what visitors spend during their extended stay. More time on site means more transactions in shops, restaurants, and leisure facilities.
Savills recorded 11,648 charging sessions across their 29 sites. Each session represents a visitor who stayed longer and spent more than they might have otherwise. Retailers report enhanced customer retention and repeat visits from drivers who know your site has reliable charging.
Sites without charging risk losing these visitors entirely. Most UK retail and leisure sites still offer only a handful of chargepoints, if any, so venues that invest now gain a visible edge while the gap between driver demand and charger supply stays wide.
The audience grows every month by law as well as by choice: the ZEV mandate requires a rising share of every manufacturer’s new car sales to be zero emission each year through to 2030. Destination charging demand only points one way.
