IONITY's Greenwich hub brings 400 kW to the weekly shop. Will the bill fit?

Andrew Till arrived at IONITY's new Greenwich hub with the wrong car to make a 400 kW charger look heroic. His older Kia e-Niro accepts a maximum of about 77 kW, he explained, and its battery was already at 64%. The hardware had plenty left to give. The car had less appetite.

That small moment in Mr. EV's September 8 visit and interview gets at the real test for IONITY as it moves deeper into cities. A motorway stop is usually about replenishing a depleted battery before driving on. A local charging visit has to fit the car, the shopping and the household budget.

Greenwich is a useful addition. Whether it becomes someone's regular alternative to a driveway socket will depend on considerably more than its peak power.

IONITY opened the Greenwich Shopping Park site on August 19, with 12 bays and charging rated at up to 400 kW. The September video provides a closer look: Till describes ten 400 kW chargers and two rated at 350 kW, alongside familiar shops and nearby supermarkets.

IONITY plans to put around 30% of its European network in dense urban areas by 2030. Greenwich follows its Birmingham Aston urban opening in February, rather than marking the company's first venture away from motorway corridors.

Chief executive Jeroen van Tilburg put the intention plainly in the opening announcement: “Our expansion goes beyond long-distance travel to enable reliable charging where demand is growing fastest: in urban areas.”

There is independent evidence for the need. Transport for London, citing a 2024 Travel Demand Survey, says 93% of inner-London households and 64% of outer-London households lack private off-street parking. Those are household figures, not percentages of EV owners, but they explain why installing a home charger cannot be the universal answer.

In Till's interview, IONITY UK and Ireland country manager Andreas Atkins describes charging prices starting at 47p/kWh and reaching 83p/kWh for contactless payment. The conversation associates the lower rate with the Power subscription. These are prices discussed in the video, not a promise that every location or payment route will offer the same tariff when a driver arrives.

Till used the Power subscription on his last road trip down to Italy and reckons it pays off if you charge a lot. The operative words there are "a lot". A lower energy rate has to save enough across actual charging sessions to cover the membership fee. An occasional top-up and a taxi's working week are different purchasing decisions.

The wider market is hardly cheap. Zapmap's August 2026 Price Index, updated September 4, puts the weighted average UK pay-as-you-go rate at 54p/kWh for Standard and Standard Plus charging, and 77p/kWh for Rapid and Ultra-rapid charging. These are national category averages, not Greenwich prices.

Zapmap also cautions that memberships, promotions and partner deals can bring actual bills below the PAYG figures. Comparing a discounted subscription rate with an undiscounted market average therefore needs care. For a local user, the useful comparison is the total bill across the charging options they can realistically reach.

Till's e-Niro provides a helpful corrective to the headline power rating. IONITY's own technical guidance explains that battery temperature, state of charge and the vehicle's capabilities affect charging speed. A short drive from home may leave a battery below its preferred charging temperature; arriving substantially charged can also limit its demand.

That does not make a powerful hub wasted infrastructure. It means owners should plan around their own car's charging behaviour. Till's preference is to charge while already parked when suitable slower charging exists, and use a shopping-area hub where it fits an errand. The convenience comes from combining tasks, rather than from every car approaching 400 kW.

Nor is IONITY alone in pursuing these customers. TfL's property company Places for London and Fastned opened a 12-bay, 400 kW hub at Hatton Cross in June, the first of 25 planned by their partnership. TfL lists weather protection, toilet facilities and two fully accessible charging spaces there. For a driver choosing between hubs, that kind of detail can matter as much as the power rating.

For Greenwich's prospective regulars, the sensible trial is an ordinary shopping trip: check the offered tariff, see how much energy the car takes during the errand, and decide whether the bill and timing work. If it passes, Greenwich has earned a spot in next week's routine.

Illustrative urban EV charging photograph, not the Greenwich site: Elmir Jafarov / Pexels, used under the Pexels licence.