A group of car manufacturers wants to start their own fast-charging network bmw and Mercedes the offer of the US electric car manufacturer Tesla stand up to them in the United States. The aim of the consortium, which also includes the US industry leader General Motors, the Italian-French Opel mother Stellantis, the Japanese carmaker Honda and the South Korean manufacturers Hyundai and Kia are involved, be it, with around 30,000 stations, the country’s leading provider of fast charging options in the USA to become. The first stations should start operating in the coming year, BMW announced on Wednesday. The carmakers left open how much money they want to put into the new joint venture.
BMW boss Oliver Zipse (59) said that North America is one of the world’s most important automotive markets and has the potential to play a leading role in electromobility. “The availability of fast charging stations is one of the key prerequisites for accelerating this transformation.”
Tesla currently operates the largest charging network in the US and has almost 18,000 Superchargers. The US automaker recently opened up its network to other manufacturers to gain access to government support from a $7.5 billion subsidy pot. Most recently, several car manufacturers such as Mercedes joined the Tesla charging standard NACS.
Volkswagen goes its own way
Volkswagen belongs to the new one alliance not on. In the USA, the Wolfsburg-based company has been building its own charging network with its subsidiary “Electrify America” since 2018. The “Electrify America” currently offers around 900 charging stations. In addition to settlement payments worth billions, the project was part of the condition imposed in the wake of the diesel scandal.
The two most important charging standards, CCS and NACS, are to be supported in the new charging network. Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares (64) emphasized that an efficient charging network should be available to everyone – “under the same conditions – and be built together with a win-win attitude”. The new charging stations are to be designed in a similar way to the current petrol stations – with a roof, restaurants, toilets and retail areas. They are initially to be built in major cities and on the most important travel routes in the USA.
The alliance not only competes against Tesla and “Electrify America”, but also against the charging stations from ChargePoint and EVGo. The U.S. government has set a goal of building 500,000 public charging stations by 2030—almost four times the number currently in operation.
In this country, the expansion of the charging network is progressing much too slowly. There should be one million charging points in Germany by 2030, but we are still a long way from that. Most recently, the Federal Network Agency reported 73,683 normal and 16,622 fast charging points. German car manufacturers have been complaining about the dilemma for some time, because as sales increase, the gap between supply and demand for charging in public spaces widens. The manufacturers themselves sometimes seek their charging luck in alliances such as the joint venture Ionity or enter into smaller cooperations. VW, BMW, Mercedes and Co. have not yet found a clear strategy.