Purchasing an electric car these days is quite easy. Almost every major carmaker now offers an electric vehicle in its product range. And we’re not talking about golf carts, but fully-equipped models with all the trimmings.
The biggest hurdle for most EVs, however, is range. While the technology is now considered to be in its puberty stage, a typical electric vehicle can only go so far in purely electric mode. Less than 200kms in most cases, which is par for the course in city driving. Yet all this may soon change, thanks to the newest venture known as Ionity.
The Ionity project is a joint venture between BMW, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company, and the Volkswagen Group (Audi and Porsche). The group, which is headquartered in Munich, Germany, aims to put up and maintain around 400 High Power Charging (HPC) stations by the year 2020.
Dubbed as the largest Pan European electric vehicle charging network to date, Ionity will kick off this year with 20 HPC stations spread out across strategic routes in Germany, Austria, and Norway. The HPC stations will be placed around 120kms apart and will be set up in partnership with groups like OMV. Tank and Rast, and Circle K.
The initial number is targeted to grow to around 100 HPC stations by 2018. All these stations are designed to simultaneously service multiple customers driving different EV brands. These HPC stations have a capacity of 350kw each and utilize the Combined Charging System. What this essentially promises is faster charging times for as many customers as possible.
With Ionity, carmakers are hopeful that more people will consider purchasing an EV, especially now that they can easily top up while travelling long distances across Europe.
