Shell acquires NewMotion to provide EV charging services

Shell acquires NewMotion to provide EV charging services

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Royal Dutch Shell is to buy Dutch-based NewMotion, one of Europe’s largest electric vehicle charging networks, enabling the oil giant to enter the rapidly growing EV charging market.

NewMotion, which has access to more than 30,000 public charging stations across Europe. This deal, therefore, makes Shell one of the first fuel companies to provide EV charging services at scale. As well as owning and operating public chargers, NewMotion also supplies charging solutions for homes and workplaces.

In addition to the NewMotion buy-out, Shell is also installing rapid points on some of its forecourts in the UK, Netherlands, Norway and the Philippines.

Commenting on the company’s strategy, Shell’s vice-president for new fuels, Matthew Tipper, said: “They’re complementary offers. One is fast charging on the go on the forecourt and the other is a slightly slower rate of charge at the workplace or at home. At this stage there are no plans to integrate the two.”

With strong growth forecast for the European EV fleet, Morgan Stanley estimates that 1-3 million public charging points will be needed in Europe by 2030. With their existing stations and customer-base, fuel companies are therefore in an excellent position to capitalise on the shift to electric.

As the shift from petrol and diesel vehicles to electric continues to gather speed, other oil companies such as BP are also planning to roll-out rapid chargers across some of their sites.