In Belgium, several large retailers offer free charging for their customers’ electric vehicles. But Lidl, a pioneer in this incentive, will soon ask drivers to pay for the electricity.
In Belgium, while combustion engine car owners pay for fuel at gas stations, several retail chains have been offering free power for electric vehicles to bring customers into their stores.
But the incentive is expected to disappear.
A spokesperson for Lidl confirmed to the local Belgian newspaper Het Belang van Limburg that the chain is going to switch to a paying system. “There’s no precise date yet, but it won’t be long. The reason is that it’s no longer tenable to offer the possibility of recharging for free, even more so with the high energy prices of last winter.”
However, Lidl still foresees offering their customers special rates at charging stations.
In Belgium, the German retail chain was considered a pioneer in offering this incentive for electric vehicle drivers to shop in their supermarkets. In 2021, the 100th Belgian Lidl store was equipped with free charging stations. Each Lidl store has two chargers that can be used for free.
Before the energy price hikes last winter, Lidl’s initiative was already increasingly questioned internally as more and more people came to charge for free without shopping in the store.
Other large retail chains have been offering free charging to customers in Belgium. But the model is disappearing.
Ikea and Delhaize, a Belgian supermarket chain, also consider asking to pay for using the chargers. Colruyt, another Belgian retail corporation, was already charging customers.
In February 2023, non-profit EV Belgium celebrated the 100,000th all-electric car registered in the country. Belgium has 27,000 public charging stations, which makes its infrastructure well advanced to support the growing number of EVs, even if most are in the Dutch-speaking region, according to the organization representing more than 120 Belgian players in the electric mobility industry.
