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Car makers pump 700 million euros into fast chargers

The automakers Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, Hyundai and Ford, together with the investment fund BlackRock, are pumping 700 million euros into fast charging stations for electric cars.

The number of fast charging stations of the charging station company Ionity must increase within four years from 1,500 at 400 locations along European highways to 7,000 at 1,000 locations. This brings Ionity pretty close to Tesla, which has 6,000 poles in more than 600 locations.

Charging infrastructure is considered a crucial link for the breakthrough of electric cars. Fast chargers along highways are indispensable, especially for the often sporadic long-distance journeys.

The investment comes with the arrival of a new shareholder: investment giant BlackRock. That puts itself on the side of the Volkswagen group, the Mercedes mother Daimler, BMW, Hyundai and Ford.

Just like the superchargers from Tesla and the charging stations from the Dutch Fastned, Ionity’s fast chargers are able to charge the batteries of electric cars very quickly.

With a maximum capacity of 350 kilowatt hours, a charge at Ionity does not, in principle, need to take much longer than a car with an internal combustion engine, which takes about ten minutes.

At the moment there are no electric cars that have a battery on board that can handle such a high charging speed. Even with an electric top model such as the Porsche Taycan, the charging speed is limited to 270 kWh. But it is expected that electric cars will be equipped with more efficient batteries in the coming years.

Refueling at super-fast chargers like Ionity’s is considerably more expensive than elsewhere, although discounted rates apply to the electric cars of the shareholder brands.

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