‘Supercharging highway’ seeks to drive electric vehicle revolution

A “SUPERCHARGING highway” for electric cars across Europe will open for business this year after BMW, Daimler and VW joined up with Ford.

The car makers have formed a joint venture called Ionity, which aims to build 400 charging stations over the next three years. The first 20 stations will open this year in Austria, Germany and Norway at 75-mile intervals along major roads, with plans for 100 stations operating across other countries by 2018. A comprehensive network of charging stations would make electric cars more viable, eliminating the need to plan routes to use existing facilities.

According to Department for Transport data, the average length of a car journey in the UK is about seven miles, a fraction of the range of most electric cars. However, “range anxiety” – the worry that an electric car will not have sufficient power to complete a journey and could leave motorists stranded away from charging facilities – is a factor holding back wider adoption.

Michael Hajesch, chief executive of Ionity, said the system would “play an essential role in establishing a market for electric vehicles”. He added: “Ionity will deliver our common goal of providing customers with fast-charging and digital payment capability, to facilitate long-distance travel.”

Other companies will be invited to join Ionity to expand its coverage. British company Chargemaster, which builds electric car chargers and operates a 300-point network of rapid chargers in the UK, said the 350 kilowatt (kw) chargers could be over engineered for most motorists’ needs. David Martell, Chargemaster chief executive, added: “We are focused on deploying solutions for the mass market, the rapid-charging standard for which is currently 50kw, moving to 150kw in the future.

“While some vehicles in the future may be able to charge at 350kw, this will not be the case for most vehicles.

“Unlike when refuelling a car, drivers can do other things while their EV is charging, so the charging time is not as great an issue as it is sometimes portrayed.”

Go Ultra Low, the joint government and industry campaign, described the news major car makers were working together to increase the viability of motorists using battery-powered cars as “fantastic”. Poppy Welch, head of the campaign, said: “The UK has already more than 13,500 charge point connectors, including more than 1,000 rapid chargers, making it one of the largest rapid charge point networks in Europe.”