Europe is starting to get more than its fair share of electric car fast-charging networks – making the rest of the EV world jealous and now we learn of again a new one as French automaker Renault announces its backing of the project.
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The network, called E-VIA FLEX-E, was actually announced in December, but it went under the radar between the announcements of several other networks.
Over the last year, several high-powered charging networks were announced on the old continent.
The first network to come to light was Ionity, which is backed by BMW, Mercedes, Ford, and Volkswagen. As we reported earlier this week, it’s starting to take shape and we got our first look at their map of planned stations.
Then there was Ultra-E, which is backed by Allego, Audi, BMW, Magna, Renault, Hubject, and others.
But we also reported last month on the new MEGA-E network, which is also backed by Allego, and it represents a massive effort to deploy over 300 stations.
Now the new E-VIA FLEX-E network doesn’t represent a project as ambitious as the other 3 networks, but it will likely still be a welcomed addition to the charging infrastructure for local EV drivers.
Renault describes the network, which will focus on Southern Europe:
“The project will kick off at the end of 2018 with the inauguration of 14 High Power charging stations in Italy, France and Spain, including eight in Italy, four in Spain and two in France. The extra-urban network will comprise High Power Charging (HPC) stations with a capacity of between 150kW and 350kW located along motorways and expressways.”
The project is led by ENEL and aside from Renault, other partners include Nissan, EDF, Enedis, Verbund and IBIL. The European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program is partly financing the effort.
The first stations are expected to come online by the end of the year.