Shell shock: oil company embraces electric cars with new charging points

SHELL, one of the world’s largest oil companies, is to introduce charging points for electric cars at service stations across Britain.

The new rapid chargers are able to replenish an electric car’s flat battery to around 80% of its capacity within 30 minutes.

By the end of the year, 10 Shell service stations will be fitted with the charging points, as the company takes its first steps towards preparing for a shift from diesel and petrol powered vehicles to hybrid and electric models — using the UK roll-out as a test for other markets.

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Approximately a quarter of the world’s cars will be electric by 2040, says the Anglo-Dutch oil company.

Called Shell Recharge, the charging points are 50kW DC fast chargers that can be used by any driver, without the need to sign up to a subscription service. Instead, a smartphone app handles the payment.

Customers will initially pay 25p per kilowatt-hour, until June, 2018, when prices will rise to 49p.

The brand is offering the service at its Holloway, Whyteleafe and Derby service stations initially, followed by seven more locations around London and Reading in 2018.

The company says its chargers will work with the combined charging system (CCS), Chademo and AC Type 2 (43kW) and adds that it is “looking to provide Tesla adapters in the near future at all Shell Recharge locations.”

To date this year, 94,093 electric and hybrid cars have been sold in the UK, compared with 69,933 over the same period last year, a rise of 34 per cent.

“This is a new space for Shell,” Jane Lindsay-Green, Shell UK future fuels manager, told Reuters. “We’re starting small and are going to learn quickly. Then we’re going to move in 2018 based on what our customers want,”

The move into electric car charging follows Shell’s acquisition of NewMotion, an electric car charging company with 30,000 private home charging points and 50,000 public sites.

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