Charge4Europe and Total cooperate for ultra-rapid charging
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.
These high power charging stations with up to 350 kW are already connected at Total gas stations. Sven Mehringer, GM Energy & Vehicle Services at DKV Mobility, expressed his pride in the new partnership. It was the first array into ultra-rapid charging at motorways for Charge4Europe, the company says.
Charge4Europe was founded at the end of 2018, and both partners retain a 50 per cent stake. They concentrate on B2B customers: “Charge4Europe has no direct contact to end customers. The company enables access to a brand-independent charging network,” explained an Innogy spokesperson at our request.
The JV is supported by Hubject in setting up a pan-European roaming network and since has had access to the more than 140,000 charging points of the ‘intercharge’ network operated by Hubject. They also signed a similar cooperation agreement with Gireve, adding another 96,000 charge points last May, as reported.
The new HPC stations – none of the partners disclosed how many – at Total will be accessible to clients using the eCharge + App by DKV.
For Total, the partnership comes amid ongoing expansion in e-mobility. The petrochemical company that nowadays claims to focus on “energy” has most recently signed for a new initiative to implement the Plug&Charge standard as reported. Total also took on the central charging networks in London and Paris last year that Bolloré initially set up. At the time, Alexis Vovk, President of Total’s Marketing & Services division, hailed the move as a step to accelerating Total’s “transformation toward a broad energy company.”
Total had also received a concession from the Amsterdam Electric Metropolitan Region (MRA-Electric) in January 2020, allowing the Group to install and operate up to 20,000 new charging points in the Netherlands through a business unit formally known as PitPoint Clean Fuels.
In France, Total had purchased the charging infrastructure specialist G2Mobility already in 2019, then hailing the move as “a pivotal step in improving our electric vehicle charging offering”. The company is also partner with New Motion since 2017.
With a view to Europe, Total has set itself to operate a total of 150,000 charging points by 2025 and “become a major player in the electric mobility business”. In Western Europe, Total plans to install around 1,000 charging points at 300 locations by the end of 2022.
The company also increased its stake in hydrogen and invested in Hyzon Motors in 2020. The fuel cell developer launched the Hyzon Zero Carbon Alliance last week.
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