Skip to main content

Automakers plan European EV super-highway

BMW Group, Daimler, Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen Group with Audi and Porsche have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create the highest-powered charging network in Europe. The goal is the quick build-up of a sizable number of stations in order to enable long-range travel for battery electric vehicle (VEV) drivers. They say it is an important step towards facilitating mass-market BEV adoption. The projected ultra-fast high-powered charging network with power levels up to 350 kW will be signific
December 2, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
6419 BMW Group, 2069 Daimler, 278 Ford Motor Company and 994 Volkswagen Group with 2125 Audi and 1656 Porsche have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create the highest-powered charging network in Europe. The goal is the quick build-up of a sizable number of stations in order to enable long-range travel for battery electric vehicle (VEV) drivers. They say it is an important step towards facilitating mass-market BEV adoption.
 
The projected ultra-fast high-powered charging network with power levels up to 350 kW will be significantly faster than the most powerful charging system deployed today. The build-up is planned to start in 2017. An initial target of about 400 sites in Europe is planned. By 2020 the customers should have access to thousands of high-powered charging points.
 
The network will be based on Combined Charging System (CCS) standard technology and expands the existing technical standard for AC- and DC charging of electric vehicles to the next level of capacity for DC fast charging with up to 350 kW. BEVs that are engineered to accept this full power of the charge stations can recharge brand-independently in a fraction of the time of today’s BEVs. The network is intended to serve all CCS equipped vehicles to facilitate the BEV adoption in Europe.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Technology overcomes EV range challenges
    February 4, 2013
    According to new analysis from Frost and Sullivan, Strategic Analysis of Global Market for Range Extenders, major challenges currently faced by the electric vehicle (EV) revolve around the inability to provide long range in a single charge as well as the lengthy charging times that can vary from thirty minutes to ten hours. This has limited the number of adopters for EVs. Range extender technology overcomes these challenges, strategically positioned to make strong gains in the EV market. Currently, the mark
  • TomTom and Volkswagen partner on automated driving
    October 3, 2014
    TomTom and Volkswagen Group Research have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to join forces for the development of highly automated driving (HAD) systems. Their aim is to jointly develop the digital map that is essential for automated driving by combining TomTom’s expertise in map content and map making with Volkswagen’s know-how of the car and automated driving. The map that is used today for navigation, including geometry, street names, and addressing, is not sufficient for the future needs of a
  • Do we need a new approach to ITS and traffic management?
    January 31, 2012
    In an article which has implications for the European Electronic Toll Service, ASECAP's Kallistratos Dionelis asks whether the approach we currently take to major ITS system implementations is always the best or healthiest. I was asked recently to write a paper on the technology-oriented future of transport. To paraphrase, I started with: "The goal of European policy-makers is to establish a transport system which meets society's economic, social and environmental needs, satisfying in parallel a rising dema
  • Senior Inrix appointments announced
    July 12, 2012
    Inrix, the international provider of traffic information and driver services, has announced the hiring of four industry leaders from the automotive and mobile industries to drive the company’s European business development and global marketing efforts. In addition, the company is naming former Blue Nile CEO Diane Irvine, to its board of directors.