In the UK, as of 1 November, Tesco will start charging electric vehicle drivers to use all types of charge points at its grocery stores. Cooperation partner Pod Point did not mention rising energy costs, saying only that the revenues will be used to meet charge point roll-out targets by next year.
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LEVC (London Electric Vehicle Company) has received an order for 60 VN5 vans from Pod Point, one of the UK’s leading providers of EV charging infrastructure. Their engineers will use the range-extended electric vans to install charging points in the UK.
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The British business unit of the parcel service provider Hermes has ordered 168 Mercedes-Benz eSprinters. The electric vans are to go into operation before the end of the year. The order is being handled by the Mercedes dealer Intercounty Truck & Van.
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In the UK, Pod Point has just announced that they will be expanding their existing agreement with Lidl stores with the installation 50 more fast chargers than originally envisaged. This means that the total number should soon be 350 fast chargers in total.
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Kia Motors UK has teamed up with both BP Chargemaster and Pod Point to offer electric car drivers preferential terms for the provision of a home charge point. Kia says home charging would cost less than £3 depending on tariffs.
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UK-based facilities management and services company Mitie now has over 750 EVs in their fleet, well above its 20% by 2020 target. On average, Mitie is now adding 75 new electric cars and vans to its fleet every month, as well as expanding their chargepoint collaborations.
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Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) that is among the UK’s biggest rail franchises opened a large charging hub at Hatfield station, north of London. The site features a total of 27 charging points.
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Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, not only are the production lines in most electric car plants at a standstill but now first effects on charging infrastructure are becoming apparent. This concerns both the production of charging points and the maintenance and distribution of the pillars.
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Australian charging station manufacturer Tritium will be Pod Point’s preferred partner for the planned rollout of DC charging stations in British supermarkets. The first DC charging points have already been set up and more are to follow soon.
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The French car manufacturer PSA has selected a partner for the installation of charging stations for all its brands in each European country. The recommended companies offer charging solutions for business customers as well as for consumers in single or multiple family homes.
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The French electricity company Électricité de France (EDF) has acquired a majority stake in the British charging station manufacturer Pod Point. The deal is part of a new joint venture with the finance company Legal & General Capital.
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Groupe PSA has named Pod Point as its exclusive charge point supplier for its business in the UK. Electric cars from Peugeot, Vauxhall, DS Automobile, and Citroën will be offered alongside chargers from Pod Point following the signing of a two-year deal.
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EV owners at 100 Tesco stores across the United Kingdom are now able to top up their battery for free while shopping. Volkswagen, Pod Point and Tescos now have their planned charge point rollout well underway.
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Lidl has announced that it will install fast chargers at over 300 stores in the UK over the next three years. New branches will only be built with charging stations, and existing stores will also be retrofitted.
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In the UK, in a response to a government letter urging them towards interoperability, the companies Ecotricity and Pod Point responded saying the technological accessibility was “not really relevant”. They argued that increased interoperability was “unnecessary for their networks” and would pose financial challenges.
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The UK facilities management company Mitie has selected Pod Point as its sole chargepoint supplier. The move comes as a part of its plans to electrify 20% of the Mitie fleet of smaller vehicles by 2020.
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The EV charging network in the UK will be expanded in two new initiatives over the next few years: Volkswagen plans to install more than 2,400 charging stations at Tesco locations, while Engenie plans to install 400 fast charging stations at Marston’s pubs.
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The construction company Skansa has equipped its UK headquarters in Hertfordshire with 67 new chargepoints. They were installed in only 2 weeks by Pod Point and word is that the 7-kW chargepoints are only the beginning.
Read moreLondon found its taxi fast-chargers: As the battery-powered black cabs will soon hit London’s roads, extending the quick charging net throughout the city has become a must. 18m GBP have been raised for this purpose and Transport for London has officially named five companies, which won the tender to install and operate this charging infrastructure. The winners are Fastned, Chargemaster, BluepointLondon, Centrica Consortium and the Electricity Supply Board (ESB). 75 taxi charging stations shall be erected by the end of the year and up to 300 by 2020.
theguardian.com, fleetnews.co.uk, tfl.gov.uk
1,000 electric buses until 2030? Since September 2016, Hamburg’s transportation agencies are cooperating with MAN as from 2020 they seek to replace buses in their fleet solely through electric powered models (we reported). Agency Hochbahn now announced it will deploy ten of them already in the on-going year and 20 more by 2018. Until 2030, Hochbahn intends to electrify its complete fleet, namely 1,000 vehicles.
mopo.de (in German)
Shop and charge: UK’s charging infrastructure provider Pod Point enters into a cooperation with real estate service provider Savills in order to equip the group’s retail parks and shopping centres with EV charging stations. The project shall be developed throughout the country.
fleetnews.co.uk
Volvo buses cooperates with Heliox: Gothenburg sees its first charging station for electric buses based on the OppCharge interface, allowing buses and stations from different manufacturers to match. Initiators have been Volvo Buses and Heliox, which operates 20 such stations in Scandinavia.
automotiveworld.com
Ride-sharing with Tesla quartet: Florida’s Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) has leased four Model X crossovers in order to build up a ride-sharing service. The business is based in the University of South Florida area and part of HART”s HyperLink programme.
electrek.co
1,000 charging stations for Canada: The Northern part of the American continent strikes again as Canada’s government grants AddEnergie 7m dollars. The EV charging company will use the investment to install more than 1,000 new charging stations across Canada by 2019 and to develop the next generation of fast-charging stations as well as other innovations for home and workplace charging.
canada.ca
CharIN got a new member: MAN joins the Charging Interface Initiative that aims to establish CCS as the standard for charging all EVs. The truck and bus maker said it would actively take part in the standardisation effort, especially with regards to smart communication between bus depot and/or logistics centres. CharIN got more than 60 members at the moment.
mantruckandbus.com
Pod Point partnered with APCOA Parking to expand its network of public EV chargers. APCOA currently has 15 points at Heathrow Airport and Birmingham’s shopping centre but the cooperation is to grow the number of charge stops significantly.
businesscar.co.uk
PlugSurfing per QR code: Berlin-based start-up PlugSurfing launched a new feature called Scan&Charge. It enables ad-hoc charging without registration via QR code, which can be applied to any charge point. The EV driver simply needs to scan the image, select a payment method and charging starts. It allows payment by the minute or kWh.
plugsurfing.com (in English), plugsurfing.com (in French)
120 hybrid buses for Milano: Iveco won a tender of fellow Italian transport provider ATM from Milan, which wants to renew its entire fleet until 2019. Iveco will thus deliver 120 Urbanway Hybrid buses starting from June 2017. The model saves about 30% fuel.
meconstructionnews.com, facebook.com
11 electric buses for ZA: Cape Town has ordered eleven electric buses including charging equipment from BYD. Ten will go into service in the South African city by 2018, while one bus is destined on loan to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital to test if electric transport is a viable option there.
engineeringnews.co.za
Diesel ban in Stuttgart by 2018: There will be no more diesel cars allowed on certain streets in the hometown of Porsche and Mercedes from next year onwards. The ruling coalition of the green and conservative party voted in favour of driving bans for vehicles below Euro 6 norm on days with high air pollution. Stuttgart suffers from fine particle pollution.
stuttgarter-zeitung.de (in German)
Charging Tuscany: Project EVE (Electric Vehicle Energy) unites Enegan, Polo Tecnologico di Navacchio (Pisa) and Dielectrik in their quest to install 325 EV charging stations in the Italian region of Tuscany. No timeline has been issued yet.
trasporti-italia.com, gonews.it (both in Italian)
Call to crowdfunding: UK charging station supplier Pod Point launched a 1.5m pound crowdfunding round to expand its network. The call is part of larger 9m GBP fundraise led by a venture capitalist firm.
fleetnews.co.uk
16 H2 pit stops in California: 33.4m dollars are available from the California Energy Commission to fund 16 new hydrogen fuelling stations in the Golden state. First Element Fuel as well as Toyota and Shell will take over their installation.
greencarcongress.com
Shop and charge: Supermarket chain Lidl struck a deal with British charging infrastructure provider Pod Point, asking the latter to set up fast-chargers for electric vehicles at some 40 locations in the UK. Customers will be able to charge for free while they shop.
fleetnews.co.uk, businessgreen.com
Electric transport: Park City in the U.S. state of Utah will purchase six all-electric buses from Proterra, as well corresponding charging infrastructure. The state is funding the initiative with 3.9m dollars. The first e-bus will already be commissioned this month, with the other to follow in June.
ksl.com, fox13now.com
Repercussions: Back in June 2015, the U.S. state of Georgia agreed to cut a 5,000 dollar subsidy for the purchase of an EV. The consequences are now becoming more apparent, as EV sales dropped 80 percent since then.
utilitydive.com
Maven fleet get electric addition: GM will offer its electric Chevy Bolt as part of its ride-hailing service Maven in California. Users can catch the EV from February 1st.
wardsauto.com
Going clean: The Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District in Illinois announced that 18 new hybrid buses will go into service there in summer. That would increase the hybrid share of its fleet to 77 percent.
foxillinois.com
Autonomous lift in a Bolt: GM and Lyft aim to have a fleet of self-driving cabs ready by January 2019. The Chevy Bolt is the most likely vehicle for the undertaking that could see 725 EVs hit the roads. Already, the companies are testing prototypes in San Francisco and Scottsdale (we reported).
electrek.co
The first 3,000 electric trikes of planned 100,000 units will arrive on the Philippines this September. Delivery is to be completed by the end of the year. The ministry of energy issued a tender for the next 6,000 electric three-wheelers. Back then, Bemac Electric reportedly won the first bid.
malaya.com.ph
Park & Fly: BMW added a new service to its ReachNow fleet in Seattle. Members of the carsharing can now park and pick-up cars from the fleet which includes about 100 i3 at Sea-Tac airport. There are complimentary shuttles from the garage to the gates and back.
greencarcongress.com
Hire a Twizy no more: At least not on the Isle of Wight, where 15 of Renault’s little EVs were available. The operator took the service offline just 5 months after launch and after receiving 40,000 GBP in funding but gave no explanation. His 26 rental Twizy in New Forest are still up and running.
iwradio.co.uk, onthewight.com, hireatwizy.co.uk
Charging electric motorbikes: POD Point partners with Motocorsa, who is the sole supplier of Energica electric motorcycles in the UK. They will provide EV infrastructure.
businessgreen.com
Audi and Porsche fast-charger: Both VW brands are looking at building their own rapid-charge network, German Wirtschaftswoche reports. “We will need to,” said Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller, but left open if Porsche and Audi would go at it alone or as a consortium. Fast-charging infrastructure will be needed if the new performance models go ahead as planned.
wiwo.de (in German)
GM carsharing: GM has bundled it mobility offers under the name Maven. The city-based carsharing app will first be made available in Michigan. The brand will also see the expansion of GM’s peer-to-peer carsharing offers in Berlin and Frankfurt. The move is said to keep up with companies like ZipCar and Uber and the Bolt would surely be a most suitable EV for sharing purposes.
autonews.com, carscoops.com
Canny charge initiative: Pod Point offered the boroughs of London to replace all broken charge points for free with the company’s own Open Point Charge POD. Pod Point even started a petition asking for support. Mind you, the subsequent maintenance agreements are part of the deal.
businesscar.co.uk, change.org (petition)
Leaf-to-Home: Nissan showcased the V2G capability of its electric vehicles in Davos. Visitors were greeted with hot chocolate, cooked on a stove powered by the Leaf battery. The Leaf-to-Home system has been available in Japan since 2012. At COP21, Nissan announced a partnership with ENEL to offer the technology in Europe as well.
blog.alliance-renault-nissan.com
Charging at home even if you live in a multi-tenant building will soon be possible as Schneider Electric and EverCharge enter into a global collaboration. Schneider Electric will deliver the charging equipment, while EverCharge’s technology allocates power according to the needs of EVs and building infrastructure.
greencarcongress.com
Tesla valet service: Luxe has become the EV maker’s latest partner. The valet-parking app will offer parking and charging services to Tesla drivers, as well as car wash and drive home services. A pilot is running in New York and San Francisco.
autoblog.com, valuewalk.com, techcrunch.com, luxe.com
Clean Air Zones: Until 2020, so-called Clean Air Zones are to be established in Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton to reduce air pollution. Within the boundaries of these zones, drivers of conventional buses, lorries and taxis will have to pay a toll.
bbc.com, gov.uk
Pod Point fully funded: The British charging infrastructure provider Pod Point successfully raised 1.75m pounds through crowdfunding. Both online campaigns (we reported) are still open. The company wants to roll out ‘top up’ charge points, where EV drivers can park for an hour or more.
evfleetworld.co.uk
Atlas EVSE: Ever Win International has founded a charging equipment unit called Atlas EVSE. First products are expected in January at the CES in Las Vegas. The sub-unit is said to focus on residential Level 2 charging with up to 30 Amps.
pr.com
E-taxis in Santiago: Three electric taxis from BYD have gone into operation in Santiago de Chile. Chilean utility Chilectra will supply the electricity to the three BYD e6 taxis free of charge for the first year.
automotiveworld.com
Luxembourg gears up: The city-state wants to install 800 electric vehicle charging stations by the end of 2020. The first 300 will be erected by July 2017, another 560 two years later.
wort.lu
POD Point charges ahead: The British provider of charging infrastructure has started two crowdfunding schemes in order to raise 1.75m pounds. The first 1.5m are to come from the “Electric Equity” programme, where people can purchase shares. The remain 250,000 GBP from the “Open Charge Bond” campaign will be used to increase POD Point’s open charging bays.
cityam.com, crowdcube.com
Le nouveau mouvement: Dutch company The New Motion signs on Egis, which offers engineering, project structuring and operations services, as a new shareholder. It will therefore also open an office in Paris, France, to expand its operation across Europe.
thenewmotion.pr.co
Hydrogen for the capitol: A total of five H2 buses have gone into service in Washington, DC; another 21 are said to follow in the coming year. The first batch services some of the busiest routes that see about 200,000 people on a workday. Each bus comes with a price tag of 970,000 dollars.
washingtoncitypaper.com
BlueIndy is a success: The electric carsharing scheme in Indianapolis only kicked off in September. The programme already counts more than 500 members, who completed a total of 3,000 trips with the Bolloré cars. BlueIndy workers continue to come to new carsharing stations to explain the vehicles and sign up new drivers.
autoblog.com
Ultra-fast charging come true: Pilot project TOSA that saw electric buses in Geneva being charged with 400 kW in 15 seconds at stops (we reported) has been a success. The Swiss city plans to acquire 12 electric buses destined to enter service in 2017 and run between Geneva city and the airport. The Swiss government is ready to contribute 15m francs (15.5m dollars).
avere-france.org (in French) via insideevs.com
Open access: British POD Point introduces its Open Charge solution that allows drivers to pay at EV charging points via app instead of an RFID card. However, the first 15 min of charging require nothing but plugging in. POD Points plans to install 100,000 charge points across the UK over the next decade.
evfleetworld.co.uk, fleetnews.co.uk
Bavarian police electrifies: Police in Munich, Nurnberg and Augsburg will each test the practicality of a refitted BMW i3. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann promised that if the i3 proves itself, police will purchase additional EVs in the future.
bayern.de, abendzeitung-muenchen.de (articles in German)
Tokyo Toyota carsharing to expand: Park24 and Toyota will widen their central Tokyo offer. From next month, more EV rental stations will open, while the Toyota iRoads are to be joined by the micro EV called COMS. The new trial will run until March 2016.
greencarcongress.com, acnnewswire.com
EV vandalism: Toyota’s i-Road sharing scheme in French Grenoble is suffering from setbacks, Bloomberg reports. Recurring vandalism has slowed down the introduction of the electric three-wheelers which were supposed to be guarded by surveillance cameras promised by the Socialists. Since the Green party has been elected together with the far-left, public support for the project has vanished.
bloomberg.com
U.S. charging patterns: The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has published a new report on EV charging behaviour. The data was gathered by six utility providers monitoring public and home charging stations. Charging patterns show sessions rarely last longer than four hours and take place at home during off-peak hours. Public chargers served mainly to top-up during peak times.
insideevs.com
Electric car-sharing expands rapidly: Kandi says it has delivered no less than 14,398 electric cars for its EV sharing program in nine Chinese cities. Hanzhou made the start with 9,852 EVs and was soon followed by Chengdu (1,020), Guangzhou (700), Shanghai (686), Wuhan (612), Changzhou (500), Changsha (388), Nanjing (340), and Rugao (300). Happy sharing!
globenewswire.com
Follow up: Solaris is to develop an extra-long electric bus together with Polish universities (we reported). Green Car Reports now has all the information on the Solaris Urbino 24 Electric concept in English.
greencarreports.com
Lease a charge point: POD Point together with Tower Leasing is offering businesses charge points to lease for about 50 pounds (75 dollars) a month over 3 years. Charging is pay-as-you-go.
electriccarsreport.com
Leaf taxis in Belgium: 12 Nissan Leafs already serve as cabs in Brussels since last September and receive positive feedback by the various operators. Nissan hopes to increase the number of Leaf cabs soon.
nissan-corse.com (in French)
New electric mobility alliance: Chinese communications provider ZTE will cooperate with Enel, Italy’s largest utility. The companies want to work together across different areas such as innovative solutions for recharging electric vehicles, smart grids and renewable energies.
smartenergyuniverse.com, elp.com
Crowd-funded charging points: As we reported, the English provider of charging technology Pod Point had launched a crowdfunding campaign to expand its EV charging network across the UK – and they succeeded! The 1.2 million pound mark has been reached within just a few days.
bdaily.co.uk, techcitynews.com
XL Hybrids retrofits Boston vans: A total of four city-owned vans have been retrofitted with the XL3 Hybrid Electric Drive System. The U.S. city aims to replace ten percent of its fleet with alternative fuel cars every year, in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
greencarcongress.com, businesswire.com
Hyundai installs hydrogen station in Australia: It will be the country’s first hydrogen refuelling point. In other words, fuel cell technology won’t arrive on the country’s shores too soon. In order to further develop infrastructure, Hyundai says, the Australian government needs to step up to the task.
carsguide.com.au, performancedrive.com.au
Supercharger update: Put together, Europe and Asia now count more Tesla-chargers than the U.S. So far, 109 Superchargers have been installed in Europe, 42 in Asia and 140 across the United States.
insideevs.com, teslamotors.com
Crowdfunded EV charging: British Pod Point is looking for 1.2 million pounds (1.8m USD) on Seedrs to expand its EV charging network across the UK. The company currently operates 1,300 charging points on the Isle and a total of 17,000 internationally.
fleetnews.co.uk, seedrs.com (campaign)
H2 charging contest: The Hydrogen Education Foundation is asking student teams to hand in business and financing models for hydrogen fueling stations for its 11th annual Hydrogen Student Design Contest. Finalists will get the chance to pitch their plans to investors.
greencarcongress.com
New V2X charger: Princeton Power Systems has introduced its new CHAdeMO-compliant fast charging stations CA-15 and CA-30 which come with 15 kW and 30 kW respectively. They enable bi-directional discharging capabilities for Vehicle-to-Grid or Vehicle-to-Building operations.
sys-con.com
EV sat-nav: Northern Ireland’s South West College and Action Renewables have launched the egomap system. The online journey planner for EV drivers in Northern Ireland and Ireland outlines the most efficient route while taking charging points and charge time into account.
businessgreen.com, egomap.eu (EV journey planner)
Time to recharge: Tesla has teamed up with Canadian Le Germain and Alt Hotels to install 20 so-called Destination Chargers. Also in the program is Shangri-La’s Sanya Resort & Spa in Chinese Hainan Province, where it has installed three Tesla charge spots.
newswire.ca (Canada), asiatraveltips.com (China)
Electric car sharing in Québec? Apparently, car2go plans to expand its service to Canadian city of Québec, a local website reports. About 40 electric Smart ED could soon become available to rent.
lifeinquebec.com
