Electric cars: Man named after service station plans motorway ‘revolution’

Toddington Harper with upgraded charge points at Toddington service station on the M1

Toddington Harper thinks he may have been destined to transform the motorway network since his parents named him after Toddington services on the M1 in Bedfordshire.

The businessman from Iver, in Buckinghamshire, is promising to make major improvements at motorway service stations allowing more drivers to charge the batteries of their electric vehicles quickly and efficiently.

Mr Harper's company, Gridserve, recently bought the existing network of almost 300 charge points at 150 locations, known as the Electric Highway, from the green energy company Ecotricity.

The plan is to replace all of those ageing devices with newer versions by September.

For the first time, it will be possible to use them with just a contactless debit or credit card instead of a smartphone app and two vehicles will be able to charge at once instead of one.

The first 'electric hub' opened at Rugby services in April 2021

Gridserve has also outlined plans to install at least 50 'electric hubs' at motorway service stations with each of them including anywhere between six to twelve ultra-rapid chargers.

The 350kW devices mean the most advanced electric cars should be able to add 100 miles of range in a matter of minutes, depending upon the car.

Other providers, including Tesla and Ionity, already have ultra-rapid chargers on, or close to, the motorway network.

Elsewhere, Gridserve has trademarked the name 'Electric Forecourts' and plans to open more than 100 of those charging hubs in towns and cities within the next five years.

Each forecourt will include shops, cafes, toilets and even showrooms where people can learn about electric cars.

Gridserve says all of its chargers are supported by solar farms, meaning that every unit of electricity taken from the grid is matched by an equivalent amount of solar energy going back into it.

The first of Gridserve's Electric Forecourts was built, at Braintree, in Essex

The government has banned the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK from 2030 in an effort to tackle pollution and climate change.

Consequently, Toddington Harper told Radio 4's You and Yours that he believes we are now entering a "mass market" for electric vehicles.

Why Toddington?

"We can have the confidence to deploy much larger numbers of chargers', he says, 'the business case is just completely different to what it used to be".

Ecotricity launched the Electric Highway in 2011. It was a pioneering move which meant drivers could travel longer distances at a time when their electric vehicles might only travel fewer than 100 miles before needing to be plugged in again.

Sohail and Machrina Ejaz charging their Nissan Leaf at Toddington Services

Technology has moved on since then and the charge points were in need of an upgrade according to motorists like Sohail and Machrina Ejaz, from Southend-on-Sea, in Essex.

"I think it is definitely a positive way forward because we used to struggle to find a working charging point but now with these upgraded ones I believe more people can charge and save time," said Mr Ejaz.

Toddington Harper's older brother, Heston, was named after Heston services on the M4 in London.

The story goes that his parents could not decide what to call him until they drove past the service station on the way home from the hospital.

Naturally, when Toddington was born they decided to name him after a service station too.

"I've heard probably all the jokes", he said as he laughed off suggestions that he could have been called Woolley Edge if he had been born further north.