Charging an electric car while picking up the weekly shopping is about to get a little cheaper at Lidl. The supermarket giant has cut its rapid-charging rate from 62p to 59p per kWh for customers paying through the Lidl Plus app, and says drivers could save £529 a year by using it.
The lower rate isn’t available to everyone, though. If you’re not using the Lidl Plus app you’ll pay 74p per kWh, 15p more than the discounted rate. Lidl bases its headline saving on a market average of 80p per kWh and says customers could save around £4.41 each time they charge, adding up to £529 over a year.
The price cut comes as Lidl commits another £10m to its EV charging network. Around 100 new rapid chargers are due to be installed at existing stores, particularly branches that don’t currently have any, while rapid chargers will also be fitted at the majority of its newly built shops.
A third of Lidl’s stores in Great Britain already offer rapid EV charging. The retailer has more than 1,010 branches across England, Scotland and Wales, and says the latest spending comes on top of the £25m it has invested in charging since 2017. Lidl also owns its charge points outright rather than relying on a third-party operator and was the first supermarket in Britain to put EV charging payments directly into its own loyalty app – Lidl calls the service “Power up with Lidl Plus”.
Richard Taylor, chief real estate officer at Lidl GB, said: “For over 30 years, we’ve focused on giving customers the best possible value on their groceries, and our EV network is an extension of that promise. By expanding our rapid chargers, we’re making it as simple and affordable as possible for shoppers to top up while they shop – helping EV drivers save money and supporting more sustainable everyday habits.”
Lidl says charging at its stores supplied enough electricity for 49.1 million miles of EV driving during the past year, the equivalent of just over 100 return trips to the moon. It also estimates the charging delivered a net carbon saving of about 10,600 metric tonnes of CO2.
Latest government statistics show that there are now over 123,000 public chargers around the UK. London leads the way with 31,697 chargers, while Northern Ireland lags behind with just 1,175 public EV chargers. The overall figure represents growth of 8.4 per cent year-on-year with 9,609 new public chargers going live between 1 September 2025 and 1 September 2026 – the equivalent of roughly 26 new public chargers installed each day.