A lot of electric vehicle charging networks in Europe operate only in specific countries, which can make it hard for electric vehicle drivers to road trip across borders. A solution has been introduced today to make European electric travel easier.
Today, five of the biggest network operators announced the ‘Open Fast Charging Alliance’, which “will enable roaming to create a premium network of fast chargers all over Europe”, according to the new group.
We are talking about DC fast-charing here and not level 2 chargers. They operate more than 500 fast chargers in 6 countries between all of them:
-
Fastned (The Netherlands)
-
Sodetrel (France)
-
Smatrics (Austria)
-
Grønn Kontakt (Norway)
-
GOtthard FASTcharge (Switzerland)
Hopefully, more will join the alliance. By the end of the year, they should be able to use open standards to allow roaming between their respective networks:
“The alliance will focus on bilateral roaming agreements between these high quality networks by implementing open standards such as OCPI. The first implementations are planned within the year.”
Some of the network operators are preparing for increasingly faster charging. Fastned is updating its fast-charging stations for ultra-fast 300 kW charge rate and GOtthard recently brought online its first 150 kW fast-charging station in Switzerland.
They virtually all have plans to significantly expand their respective networks with several more stations in the next few years.
In Europe, Tesla is also expanding its Supercharger network and last year, 5 major automakers joined forces to deploy 400 ultra-fast (350 kW) charging stations for electric vehicles in Europe.
It looks like Europe is well-prepared for more long-range all-electric vehicles to come to market.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments