Breaking: Mer to be acquired by Be.EV
Mer is the third network this week to be acquired in market consolidation
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
Top story in today’s edition... Mer, the charging network with 1,300 chargers, is to be acquired by Be.EV, the network backed by Octopus Energy.
This comes as Trojan Energy and SureCharge got snapped up by Connected Kerb and Shell-Ubitricity, respectively, earlier this week.
Elsewhere… A successful launch for Global Women in EV day, new car registrations, plus the most reliable and most unreliable used EVs.
As ever, if you have any comments or feedback, please reply to this email or message me on LinkedIn.
Mer Charging to be acquired by Be.EV
Context: Since 2023 – and maybe even before that – I have had charging network executives in my ear suggesting ‘consolidation is imminent’. And much like those lunatics carrying signs branded “THE END IS NIGH!” ... it’s never really materialised. Of course, some of the uber teeny tiny names have gone. But we’re talking here about well-known names. At some point, I’m quite confident every major network has been suggested to me as being on the brink.
And yet... Dozens of networks have continued to plod on. However, perhaps in 2026, market consolidation isn’t nigh, but here. Tuesday alone saw two acquisitions.
Consolidation number one... The lamppost network SureCharge, established by the construction business FM Conway, was swallowed up by Shell-Ubitricity. The deal will make Shell-Ubitricity the largest UK network by some mileage. They’ll have 14,000 chargers across 30 authorities. Read more.
Consolidation number two... Trojan Energy, the Scottish-based EV charging network which brought innovative ‘plug-into-the-pavement’ charging to several London Boroughs, has now been acquired by Connected Kerb – one of the UK’s largest networks, and one backed by the National Wealth Fund about a year ago. This happened after Trojan was reported as struggling, particularly after the Department for Transport ruled out their product from the £25 million EV Pavement Fund – despite the DfT having included Trojan’s device within a ‘solution document’ before the fund’s announcement. Read more.
Interesting to note... None of these announcements came with figures attached. That’s not a guarantee in news about mergers or acquisitions, however, given we know that most charge point operators are struggling to deliver returns on investment and make any kind of profits, I think it's safe to predict we won’t see the former owners of SureCharge or Trojan on a private jet out to Saint Tropez.
These two may only be the start... The CEO of Be.EV, which is backed by Octopus Energy, made this point very clear last week in comments made to The Guardian, suggesting numerous networks were running out of money and were desperate to be bought. Be.EV’s CEO, Asif Ghafoor, commented that they would be undertaking their own acquisitions and are looking to triple their network size from 900 chargers, as it currently stands.
And today... I can reveal Be.EV is acquiring Mer.
Let’s dive 🤿 …
Who are Mer? Mer has been active for many years in the UK. They were one of the earliest networks on the scene, securing sites all over. As of December 2025, Mer operated more than 1,300 devices, according to Zapmap. The business itself is owned by the Norwegian renewable energy firm, Statkraft. Likewise, according to Companies House, Mer’s UK holding company also lists Norway’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries as a significant shareholder.
According to multiple sources... I understand that Statkraft has been looking to exit the public charging market for a while.
Details are quite light... However, the fact that Mer’s UK annual accounts are now more than a month late has fuelled speculation about the company's future. In the last published accounts, which went up to December 2023, Mer Charging had identified liquidity as a principal risk. In the accounts, it said Mer’s parent company had a “present intention to provide financial support for at least one year after the date that these financial statements are signed for.” They were signed in September 2024, so quite a while back now.
Outside the financials... There’s been talk of Mer staff being on the hunt for new jobs, and that the company has been kept in a zombie state. Aka, being less active in competitions for new sites, and slow to fix broken charge points.
Based on my own search using Zapmap... I identified several sites that appeared ‘out of service’ with previous comments suggesting cables had been cut and not replaced for many months. This chimes with my conversations with eight operators for my recent cable theft story (see here). Mer was consistently referenced as a network that had been hit very badly by organised criminals. When I approached Mer to be involved in that piece, they did not respond.
And so we come to today’s news… After many years of operating, Mer is to be bought by Be.EV. This will turn the Manchester HQ’d charging network into a big player, propelling their current 900 chargers to at least 2,200.
Mer and Statkraft have declined to comment. Be.EV has just put something up on their website.
Latest EV news...
🚀 Yesterday was Global Women in EV Day. I sadly couldn’t be there, but it looks like the launch event was fantastic. My LinkedIn is wall-to-wall about it. This video sums up all the pledges made by the EV sector, including mine. Follow the page here. Also at the event, the 49 Collective was launched. The group will celebrate, elevate, and connect women driving the transition to electric mobility, across industry, policy, infrastructure, and innovation, in the UK and beyond. Check out the website here.
✍️ EVA England is calling on drivers across the UK to share their views on the Government’s proposed ‘pay-per-mile’ scheme. Their survey is part of informing a much wider review of public charging, which was promised in the Budget. See the survey here (and submit!).
🤔 Who was it that said the ‘truth is based on what you read’? Or is that one I can claim? In any case, I like to read both sides. And when it comes to the latest car registrations in the UK, here are the facts as I see them. Firstly, January is not a good month to judge car registrations. Secondly, lobby groups have agendas. Thirdly, BEV registrations dipped to just short of 21% of total registrations last month, which is slightly less than January last year. But, lastly, PHEVs are up by nearly 4% compared to last year to some 13%. So, overall, cars with a plug made up one in three registrations. Read New AutoMotive’s take. Or read SMMT’s. Or why not both!
👉 Talking of New AutoMotive, the think tank has also released new data suggesting most carmakers are actually overachieving against the ZEV Mandate. See the chart here. Naturally, some of those carmakers would probably argue this is achieved through discounting.
⚡️ A lot of people I speak to in the EV sector are very worried about Reform. And I’m sure it comes up around a lot of water coolers, especially as Labour seems quite shaky. I’m not an apologist for them; however, I was quite surprised to see Kent County Council, which is led by Reform, has just announced 10,000 EV chargers for the area through a partnership with Urban Fox, using £12 million from DfT. Read more.
🌻 Raw Charging has installed 16 EV chargers at the RHS Hyde Hall near Chelmsford. Isn’t that lovely, Petunia? Read more.
🔌 In a not-quite-so-natural location, Ionity has opened a new ultra-rapid charging hub with twelve 400kW devices in a former derelict car park in Birmingham. Read more.
🚗 Good news for the people of Harrow. Thanks to the borough’s partnership with Char.gy, by October 2028, the area will have 500 new chargers within lampposts. Read more.
📍 Have you seen the Fuel Finder website yet? It comes after the government has established an API to make it easier to search for petrol pricing. However, it also covers EV chargers. Find it here.
💷 Talking of making it easier to recharge, if your workplace hasn’t yet but could benefit from EV charging, be aware that the Government’s funding scheme is due to close at the end of March. So get an application in soon. Read more.
🛠️ According to a new analysis of 1,000 vehicle repairs over 2025, the Nissan Leaf is assumed to be the most reliable used EV. And the top reason for a claim across all EVs was anti-roll bar link failures. Read the full list here.
😳 Speaking of repairs, new DVLA data has suggested that five of the top 10 car models for not passing an MOT are electric. One model that really didn’t do EVs any favours was the Mercedes EQC. Apparently, out of 4,179 EQCs that were registered in 2022 and underwent their initial MOT in 2025, some 717 didn’t pass. That’s a failure rate of 17.2%. Read here.
🚚 Eight in 10 organisations with large fleets say that policy fluctuations are undermining their ability to map long-term EV strategies. This is according to a survey of more than 300 senior fleet leaders across the UK and the US, conducted by EO Charging. Read here.
⛔️ Finally, as talk of Autonomous Vehicles in the UK continues to heat up... A US Professor has suggested that if you hold up a sign with a command in front of an AV, as they run on large language models to read signs, you can theoretically change what the vehicle does. I am absolutely going to carry with me a rolled-up ‘STOP’ sign to deploy on nights out. Read more.