BP announced that it plans to invest £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the UK over the next 10 years.
It's so far the largest EV-related initiative for the company, which is expected to allow it to triple the number of bp pulse charging points in the county by 2030.
According to the press release, the investment appear sto be on the fast charging and ultra-fast charging stations (usually associated with respectively up to 150 kW and up to 350 kW power level), but part of the package is also "fleet products and services, and launch new home charge digital products and services to enhance the customer experience".
The investment will see bp pulse:
- Approximately triple the number of public charging points in its UK network.
- Accelerate the roll out of state-of-the-art 300kW and 150kW ultra-fast charging points that are able to provide EV drivers up to 100 miles of range in around 10 minutes of charging, depending on the model of electric vehicle.
- Upgrade its current EV charging technology across its public charging network to improve reliabilitySupport hundreds of new jobs in the UK.
The announcement comes after BP has revealed that fast chargers have become almost as profitable as fuel pumps.
If there are clear signs that the company will be able to profit from the charging network, it seems reasonable to scale up the network, especially since the British EV market is booming.
During the first two months of the year, new passenger plug-in car registrations in the UK, more than doubled. The average market share of rechargeable cars exceeds 22%.
Considering the recent situation in Europe and higher fuel prices, the interest in BEVs and demand might even increase, however we all know that not much can be done on the supply side (actually, production is even more constrained).
An interesting thing for BP will for sure be the rumored opening of the Tesla Supercharging network to non-Tesla EVs in the UK, where the network was often considered as the top in terms of customer satisfaction.
