14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, IKEA went public with the news that, by the end of this year, all its stores in the UK would be “accessorized” with a charging station for electric vehicles.
“At IKEA we believe electric vehicles have a significant part to play in a more sustainable future. We know that our customers want to live more sustainably and that extends to how they get to and from our stores,” explains Joanna Yarrow, the current head of sustainability for IKEA UK and Ireland.
“By installing more charging points and strengthening the infrastructure nationally, we believe we can start to tackle one of the major barriers to using electric cars, which is the fear of not finding a convenient place to charge the car,” she adds.
The installation of these EV charge stations at all the 18 IKEA stores presently operating in the UK will be the result of a collaboration between the furniture retailer, Nissan and Ecotricity, a company that specializes in marketing green energy.
According to Business Green, Nissan will be responsible for developing and installing the charging stations. Ecocentricity, on the other hand, is expected to provide the green energy that the stations will need in order to function.
Once completed, the charging stations will only need about 30 minutes to charge an EV to 80% of its capacity, the same source details.
IKEA expects that, in the not so distant future, its UK stores will get not one, but more such charging stations. As the company explains, this is bound to happen due to the fact that an increasing number of people are looking into the possibility of purchasing an EV rather than a run-off-the-mill car.
“We know that the EV market growing and that there is a growing demand for rapid charging infrastructure,” Joanna Yarrow says. “So far in 2013 more than 1,500 LEAFs have been sold, three times as many units compared with last year,” she details.