Applegreenelectric Recensioni 

Applegreen 400kW chargers at Leicester Forest East Northbound. They look as if they were recently installed.

Problems:

1) The connecting cables appear very short in comparison to some; for example, I have used an MFG charger of similar output earlier this month and there was no problem. The outcome is that the plug doesn’t always fit securely in the car’s socket, which causes an unreliable connection;

2) Applegreen’s site says that they are ‘Octopus Compatible’, but my RFID card was rejected and I had to use contactless; this doesn't include Amex, by the way. Why not, given the charge of 80p+/kWh? I don't want yet another app, as I do a lot of my charging at home and can live without all the hassle involved in setting up multiple accounts;

3) Instructions on the main display panel and the contactless payment/RFID pad are contradictory; it is not clear that your card has been rejected until the display panel says ‘Finished’ without actually doing any charging. The payment pad then displays ’Start New Session’ or ‘Stop Session’. Why is that on the contactless pad? Makes for confusion. All the display panels are also not very well back-lit, making them difficult to read.

I did eventually get one to work after moving the car to a different point and restarting the process from scratch, but the whole experience was frustrating!

Really poor overall and I will be avoiding them in future.

My partner stopped to charge at the Telford services charger on a long journey on the basis that this is supposed to be a >100 kW fast charger. This was her first public charging experience.

The reality was that the first charger that she plugged in entirely refused to charge either by Electroverse card or by debit card. The charger took multiple £30 holds from her account.

The second began charging and then froze charging multiple times during charging. She was unable to get up to 80% charge, and this wasted time on her trip and made her late.

To make matters worse. I emailed support at the address on their website to notify of the non-working first charger, and the email bounced. I tried to ring the support line, and it was just hold music.

If you're running an essential part of the road network that has the potential to leave people stranded, it's not acceptable to have non-working infrastructure and no quickly reachable line of support.

This company should not be allowed to run critical infrastructure.

Birchanger services - tried 4 different machines using Electroverse app, Electroverse card and credit card, Every charger refused to recognise my car. After a wasted hour had to find a Gridserve device to get minium charge and out of site within 2 hour parking limit!!! to then break my journey at another stop to get fully charged. Applegreen hopeless will avoid at all costs in future and any M/way services with time limited parking.

Southbound fleet services useless chargers, tried six of them and all failed. Tried contacting via email with no response.
App as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Discounts gated behind the worst app

Picture the scene. I arrive, late, tired, in need of charging. The charger in the services is an applegreen. My first experience with the company. Signage is poor, I spoke to a lovely person from customer services who told me the tariffs direct and through the app. Cheaper through the app, of course. So I download the app. I create an account. I enter my name, my address, my vehicle registration, type, and colour. (I could not complete registration until I told the app my vehicle's colour). I enter my payment information, through an awkward UI which doesn't support apple's autofill. I re-enter my payment information (through the same awkward UI that still doesn't support apple's autofill), because something timed out with my bank.

I now need to verify my phone number with a 6 digit code. No code arrives. I press "resend code". The app says "code sent". No code arrives. I cannot charge my car until my phone number is verified. But no code arrives.

I'm tired. I need a wee. I want to get home. So I give up and pay the higher price with my card. I don't know who wins from this interaction, but I certainly will be avoiding applegreen in the future, and awarding a well earned 1 star review.

Do better.

Applegreen places a $30 authorization hold on every charging attempt, including failed attempts. While trying to charge my vehicle, the initial connection failed. After unplugging and retrying, I was able to successfully charge. However, the failed first attempt generated one $30 hold, and the successful second attempt generated another $30 hold. One actual charging session resulted in two pending holds totaling $60, which was my entire available balance.

At my next stop, also an Applegreen station, I could not charge because those holds had frozen my available funds. I was left stranded two hours from my destination with insufficient range and no access to my own money.

I contacted customer service. They would not release the holds, could not authorize a charging session, and told me nothing could be done except escalate the issue. I was also told the funds would not be available for 24 hours.

Failed charging attempts should not create unreleased authorization holds that prevent customers from charging at subsequent locations. Stacking authorization holds from failed attempts is a serious system failure for infrastructure people rely on during travel.

Tried to charge at Newport Pagnell South today using the Applegreen charger. Initially I had to set up an account and after providing my ‘life history’ I was flummoxed as I didn’t have a physical card for app details. Haven’t you guys heard of Apple and Google pay!!

So I drove away and parked, as only allowed 10 min without charging in an EV bay!

I then worked out that they are supposed to accept Electroverse RFID cards and I have one of those which I’ve successfully used a couple of times.

No luck it seemed to accept the card but then not process the info. I ended up driving home and using the slow charger at my house.

These guys need to simplify the technology, it’s pants!

I charged at Applegreen Birdhill a week ago today. Because the chargers generally suck, each time it disconnected after about 90 seconds or so until the 4th time when the charging continued until I stopped and left. In that time I had to tap the debit card 4 times and got charged 30 euro each time. Most of that money was just held and it is still held / not released today, after a full week. And at the same time around me there were 3 other cars that did not manage to connect despite 30 minutes of fiddling with the chargers. One of the cars, an ID4 with a family of 4 with two small babies. I helped them a bit but there was no connection to be had. Can it be that difficult in 2026 to have an EV charger that actually works? And I'm very good around technology, what about other people that are not? And why do we need all these stupid apps for EV charging, why can it not be the same as petrol cars that you connect and fill up, and when you're finished you pay the actual amount? Why don't regular people get 100s of euro held up for a week or more when they fill up? Because they would revolt. So why are you testing EV owners like crap? This is nearly theft. My 5 cents, avoid applegreen chargers.

My daughter, 5yr old grandson, 2yr old granddaughter and I were stuck at a EV charger at South Mimms services that wouldn’t work. They took £45 out of my account and then kept trying to take it again when we had to move to another charger. My daughter then had to pay £45 when we finally found a charger that worked. During all of this, we spoke to 3 customer service persons and were promised a call back from a manager each time! This was between around 6-6.45pm. It’s now quarter past midnight and we’ve had no call back! Absolutely dire service - DO NOT USE THEIR EV CHARGERS!

I charged my car and found that it is impossible to get a receipt. Their phone line cuts you off every time. This has cost me both times and money

Recent issue with charger not working. Shocking customer care. Promised numerous call backs which did not happen. User error blamed with no responsibility taken for faulty terminal. Defrauded by yet another service company. Avoid at all costs unless you want to deal with a non existent customer care department if things go wrong.