Shell Plans to Deploy Quick-Recharge Stations by 2019

We’ve spilled buckets of digital ink about “range anxiety,” the biggest roadblock to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Royal Dutch Shell and a coterie of automakers may have finally ended this insidious ailment ... by 2019.

Shell and IONITY – a joint venture between BMW, Daimler, Ford, and Volkswagen – announced plans to deploy 80 ultra-fast chargers to European highways by 2019. According to the Anglo-Dutch oil company, the IONITY technology could fully charge a car with a capacity of 350 kilowatts in 5-8 minutes.

Shell estimates that this program – starting in 2019 – could boost the overall share of electric vehicles from 1 to 10% of the entire auto fleet by 2025. A bold prediction, to be sure, but the solution is one of the most tangible remedies yet to dealing with “range anxiety.”

Lithium-ion firm Enevate recently announced a similar fast-charging technology promising a recharge time of 5 minutes, and Toshiba unveiled a battery with a new anode material (titanium niobium oxide) that enables recharge times of 6 minutes. But Shell’s deal with IONITY is one of the first concrete plans I’ve seen for getting quick-recharge technology in front of the public.

The first 80 stations will be deployed in Belgium, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, with 20 more planned for Germany, and a network of 400 charging stations expected by 2020.

See more here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-batteries-shell/shell-and-carmakers-aim-to-go-the-distance-with-highway-charging-idUSKBN1DR00G