What makes a great charging site
September 1, 2026
A great EV charging site is about much more than the charger. The best sites combine rapid and reliable charging with the right location, useful amenities and a safe, welcoming environment – creating somewhere drivers actually want to spend their time.
In this insights post, we look at what makes a great charging site, why destination charging is key to a positive charging experience, and why creating the right site sometimes means adding the amenities drivers need ourselves.
Is a charger the only thing that’s needed to create an EV charging site? Of course, drivers need chargers that work, deliver the desired charging speed, and offer straightforward payment methods. But assuming you’re able to get those basics in place, an inevitable question arises: what is the driver meant to do while their car charges?
At Zapgo, we believe that answering that question is central to creating a great charging experience.
A charging site needs to be somewhere worth stopping
Charging an EV is a fundamentally different experience to refuelling a petrol or diesel car. Whereas a traditional forecourt is designed around getting a driver in, refuelled, and out as quickly as possible, destination charging creates the opportunity to use your stop differently. Drivers can plug in and grab a coffee, do their shopping, have something to eat, visit a local business, or simply take a proper break from a longer journey. With destination charging, your vehicle charges in the background while you get on with something else you already wanted to be doing.
This means those of us building great charging sites must always think about how drivers will actually use the location and what they’ll find when they arrive.
Consider the opportunities available to drivers at just some of our current live sites.
Starbucks, Crieff
Drivers can stop for a coffee or a snack at Starbucks or, if they want to do their big shop, can go to the nearby Aldi all while their vehicle charges. Situated on the gateway to the Highlands, our charging site offers amenities to the local area as well as a convenient stop for motorists travelling further afield.
Callerton Rise Retail Park
The average Brit spends just under 40 minutes at a supermarket – that’s enough time to get your vehicle to over 80% charge from nearly empty at one of our ultra-rapid chargers. Our charger on this site has given drivers the ability to charge their vehicle in the background while they shop at the Co-op, grab a snack from Greggs, or visit Harrison Family Vets.
Fussels, Somerset
This site has the perfect amenities for every foodie out there. While their vehicle charges, drivers can explore the Fussels Fine Foods farm shop and a range of other independent suppliers including Somerset Foodie, offering breads, sourdough pizza bases, sauce and ingredients, and MasterChef winner Ping Coombes’ handcrafted Malaysian range.
The Stanley Club, Burscough
This site gives drivers the opportunity to visit a historic community venue which has brought local people together for decades. Offering drivers a range of events such as comedy clubs and live football while they charge up, the Club gives drivers a reason to spend time at the location.
Each of these destinations demonstrates the different ways drivers can use a charging site. Different destinations serve different people but all great charging sites should become destinations in their own right – somewhere worth discovering rather than simply somewhere to stop for a minute.
What if the amenities aren’t already there?
Not every location which needs a charger has every café, supermarket or established visitor attraction it needs from Day 1. That doesn’t mean that a charger can never be built there. Sometimes, the installation of chargers at the site offer an opportunity to bring additional amenities to local communities and visitors.
Where appropriate, we’re seizing the moment to introduce other much-needed amenities sites, such as toilet facilities, vending machines, and a coffee machine.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to site selection. If an area genuinely needs charging provision and the location has the fundamentals of a strong site, the absence of some specific amenities we’d like to accompany our chargers does not necessarily make the site unviable. Sometimes, destination charging is about identifying great existing destinations; sometimes, it can be about helping to create one.
Making charging part of everyday life
As the UK charging network expands, the quality and location of our charging sites is becoming more and more important.
This is why a great charging site combines rapid and reliable infrastructure with somewhere drivers genuinely want to spend their time. That might be a coffee shop, a community club, a farm shop, a retail park or somewhere to pick up the groceries.
And where a location is otherwise right but the amenities are missing, the installation of chargers may be the very excuse needed to put them there.
Ultimately, destination charging is about making charging fit around people’s lives rather than asking people to organise their lives around charging. Get that right and charging stops feeling like waiting.
“All great charging sites should become destinations in their own right – somewhere worth discovering rather than simply somewhere to stop for a minute.”
