Germany: Lidl & Kaufland to add EV charging at their stores

The plan is to have a charging station on every parking lot at the approximately 3,900 Kaufland and Lidl stores across Germany.

The German Schwarz Group supermarket operator has announced a nationwide expansion of charging stations for electric vehicles in Kaufland and Lidl stores, which will in future be equipped with at least one charging station per site. Each branch will have one column.

The company declared that the goal in the medium term is to have a charging station on every parking lot at approximately 3,900 Kaufland and Lidl stores in Germany. With the update, the average distance between two Schwarz Group´s charging points will be reduced to less than 20 kilometres.

AC and DC charging points will be combined “with different performance levels”. High Power Chargers will also be installed at some locations. 100% of the electricity will be green, partly generated by the photovoltaic systems of the branches.

In February, Kaufland put the 100th charging station into operation and set a target of another 100 by the end of 2020. In March, Lidl announced that it would be equipping around 400 of its stores across Germany with charging stations within a year.

“We demand that politicians reduce bureaucratic hurdles that stand in the way of a nationwide, rapid and efficient expansion of the charging infrastructure,” says Gerd Chrzanowski, CEO of Schwarz Dienstleistungen.