France’s oil and gas giant Total has opened its network of high power charging stations to Charge4Europe. The JV of DKV and Innogy thus extends its reach across Europe with the agreement affecting Total pit stops in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

General Motors has presented its concept for simplifying electric car charging for US customers under the name ‘Ultium Charge 360’. The “holistic approach” is supposed to cover all charging scenarios, public and private.

Hubject and Saascharge, a provider of electric vehicle charging software, have announced an international partnership that will enable roaming for their respective customers in Europe and the US.

Kia will offer buyers of the new EV6 reduced prices at its HPC stations in Europe as one of the shareholders of the joint venture Ionity. The brand has just announced that two pricing packages will be offered.

JustPark, which manages a community of space owners and their charge points, has teamed up with Zap-Map. The charging location service will include up to 800 charging stations via JustPark as it rewrites its home charger offer.

Major players such as BMW AG, Groupe Renault, Stellantis, Tritium and Volkswagen AG, and Shell, bp, and Total, have agreed to implement Plug&Charge as standardised by ISO before the second half of this year. A dedicated project team at CharIN is to drive the implementation.

The charging infrastructure service provider Virta has secured 30 million euros in capital in a new financing round. The Finnish company was able to secure new investors, and all previously existing backers, including E.ON, also joined in the financing round.

Siemens has introduced a new charge controller and calibration kit first to fully adhere to CharIN specifications. The plug-and-play system is to enable charging system providers to calibrate their systems more easily and quickly.

Electric car charging company EV Connect announces plans to expand into Canada. The networked businesses include partnerships with Volkwagen’s Electrify America or EVgo. Now EV Connect is opening the first office in Toronto.

Payment service provider Worldline has announced the launch of a new payment solution at charging stations. The French company says that the WL Easy EV is suitable for both large infrastructures and smaller providers. Payments can be made at four different card readers via touch screen or push button.

Alongside the BMW Group and Daimler Mobility AG, BP will become the third shareholder in the charging infrastructure provider Digital Charging Solutions GmbH (DCS) with a share of 33.3 per cent. DCS will also offer combined charging and refuelling solutions through the partnership with the mineral oil company in the future.

In an open letter to the EU Commission, ChargeUp Europe, an association of European charging infrastructure providers, has called for a new stand-alone regulation for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The association says this should be separate from the existing directive for alternative fuels (DAFI).

In the UK, Ecotricity’s network of charging stations along the ageing Electric Highway is to be comprehensively modernised. This will include contactless payment and multiple charging options.

UK energy supplier and charging network operator Octopus Energy has signed a roaming agreement with Ionity. Ionity’s HPC chargers in the UK and mainland Europe will be now be connected to Octopus Energy’s Electric Juice Network (EJN).

In the UK Kia has launched its charging service KiaCharge. This gives the brand’s BEV- and PHEV-drivers access to more than 13,900 charge points across the UK, meaning access to around 68 per cent of the public charging network from a single account.

The former team behind Plugsurfing and Allego has launched an AI-based software-as-a-service platform for electric vehicle charging. The promise: anyone who wants to enter the electric vehicle charging market should be able to set up their own charging app within 24 hours with Deftpower.

The BMW Group has introduced a new tariff structure for its charging services BMW Charging and Mini Charging in 19 European countries. Only one of the two tariffs offers fixed prices at all available charging stations. In both cases, preferential conditions with Ionity cost more.

Statkraft makes another acquisition in the field of charging infrastructure: The Norwegian state-owned energy company announces the takeover of 51 per cent of the shares of the Swedish provider Bee Charging Solutions. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

The InterEnergy Group has ordered 50 charging stations from Blink as they expand the Evergo network into Panama. The order consists of 35 Level 2 charging stations and 15 Blink DC fast-chargers and, there are more on the line.

Allstar Business Solutions, a provider of fuel cards in the UK, has agreed on a new partnership with Gronn Kontakt, an EV charging company owned by Statkraft. The deal means that Allstar has added a further 110 charge points to the network and coincides with the launch of a new EV charge payment card.

The British hotel chain Premier Inn has commissioned the energy group Engie to supply up to 1,000 fast charging points for electric cars. They plan to set up 600 charging points with more than 50 kW capacity at 300 hotels within the next three years.

Fast charging company Fastned increased its revenue from charging operations in the fourth quarter of 2020 by 14% year-on-year to €1.9 million. The number of charging transactions in the Fastned network rose to over 194,000 (+12%).

In France, charging network operator FreshMile and charging specialist Chargemap have expanded their cooperation. Until now, access to Freshmile charging stations with the Chargemap badge has been via roaming. Now, the Chargemap and Freshmile services are connected directly via the open protocol OCPI.

Volkswagen Group Components has created a new Charging & Energy business unit as of 1 January 2021. This will be headed by Elke Temme, who was formerly managing director of Innogy eMobility Solutions.

After the new charging platform was founded this year, now more than 100,000 charging points are now available for roaming partners to connect via the European platform e-clearing.net. The platform has processed more than 3.3 million transactions this year.

In the coming year, more and more charging stations will be Plug&Charge-capable, thanks to several steps that have been taken behind the scenes. This lays the groundwork from which the automotive industry at large should now benefit. That being said, for the technology to be widely used, one main thing is still missing: a large […]

The charging infrastructure lobby organisation ChargeUp Europe wants to change from an informal alliance to an industry association next year. To this end, the organisation has appointed Christopher Burghardt, ChargePoint’s Managing Director Europe, as President for the first full year of operation.

Hubject has entered into a cooperation with ultra-fast charging venture Scandinavia ApS. The 48 fast charging parks of the joint venture belonging to E.On and Clever in Denmark, Norway and Sweden will be connected to Hubject’s EV charging platform intercharge.

Total has won the concession tender of the City of Paris for the modernisation and expansion of the French capital’s public charging network. The concession is valid for ten years and covers the supply, installation and operation of the charging network.

In Germany, a panel of top politicians and business leaders has decided on further incentives for electric mobility. As expected, these include the extension of the innovation premium until 2025, but also subsidies and requirements for the expansion of charging infrastructure.