EG Group, a British operator of fuel stations, announced today that it will acquire Tesla's electric vehicle ultra-fast chargers for its evpoint business.
According to the company, its rapidly growing charging network currently consists of more than 600 chargers across 189 sites, while the goal is to deploy more than 20,000 chargers across about 3,600 sites in the United Kingdom and continental Europe.
That's potentially a very large business opportunity for Tesla, which increasingly is expanding its charging business. Initially, Tesla was a vertically integrated manufacturer of chargers and an operator of its own dedicated charging network. Now, Tesla's charging network is open for non-Tesla EVs globally on a mass scale, while the company is also selling its charging solution to third-party networks, like EG Group and recently BP in North America.
In the case of the EG Group, it's the first of its kind agreement with Tesla in Europe. Zuber Issa CBE, Founder and co-CEO of EG Group, said: “Securing this best-in-class equipment from Tesla marks another milestone for evpoint and is hugely exciting for us. It is the first deal of its kind entered into by Tesla with a third-party charge point operator in Europe and will transform how our customers charge their vehicles and how they interact with EG.”
We guess that Tesla might be very competitive and soon attract multiple large charging networks with its latest V4 Superchargers. Potentially, it might be a huge disruption to the existing EV charger manufacturers, which usually are much smaller in terms of production volume.
Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla's Senior Director of Charging Infrastructure even pointed out that the company is ready for orders from other companies: “The rapid installation of reliable, easy-to-use EV charging infrastructure is the right step towards a sustainable future and a key area of focus for us at Tesla. For this reason, we’re excited to make our fast-charging hardware available for purchase to EG Group, and other leaders in the space.”
According to EG Group, the Tesla-supplied hardware will operate on an open network basis, which means that all drivers will be able to access evpoint chargers, regardless of the brand of vehicle. In Europe, all new DC fast chargers are CCS2-compatible, including Tesla Superchargers, so there's no issue with connector standards. Additionally, the chargers will support the Plug and Charge protocol to simplify and automate payments.
The first Tesla EV chargers in the EG Group's evpoint network are expected to be deployed by the end of this year, which shows us how quickly Tesla can start deliveries and installations.
