Sainsbury’s has opened a flagship store in Talbot Green in Wales which offers an ultra-rapid charging service for electric vehicle (EV) users.

The 53,000 sq. ft. store is centred around a “state-of-the-art" food hall which uses digital signage and displays to make the store easier to navigate.

The store offers six 150kW+ charging bays, which take around 30 minutes to provide enough power for EV users to travel up to 200 miles.

The new store is Sainsbury’s second location in Wales to offer the smart charging service and the thirtieth in the UK so far.

The supermarket said the new store offers customers its Tu clothing range, homeware from Habitat and an Argos store. The store also has Starbucks and Timpson concessions.

“I’m immensely proud of everyone who has helped to deliver this fantastic new store,” said Patrick Dunne, Sainsbury’s director of property, procurement and EV ventures. “We’re determined to be first choice for food, ensuring more customers in more of our stores can enjoy more brilliant Sainsbury’s food and Sainsbury’s Talbot Green is a prime example of how we’re striving towards that.”

He added: “It was also really exciting to celebrate the launch of our 30th Smart Charge location, the latest step in our plan to give confidence in public EV charging a major boost by building a trusted ultra-rapid charging brand that helps reduce range anxiety for EV drivers nationwide.”

Earlier this month, Sainsbury’s announced a new strategy designed to make the supermarket the first choice for food shoppers and reduce costs by £1 billion by investing in technology and infrastructure.

Under the new strategy, Sainsburys expects capital expenditure to increase to between £800 million and £850 million per year over the next three years.

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