Investing in Europe’s future charging infrastructure, now

How will elec­tric mobil­i­ty oper­ate in the future? How will charg­ing infra­struc­ture sup­port the ever-increas­ing demand for elec­tric vehi­cles (EVs)? And how do we make sure ener­gy from renew­able sources is avail­able at any time to meet the enor­mous demand?

In the next five years alone, 400 bat­tery-pow­ered EV mod­els will hit the mar­ket. As such, the indus­try is wit­ness­ing a grow­ing con­ver­sa­tion around charg­ing infra­struc­ture, its scope, extent and attrac­tive­ness.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, pure avail­abil­i­ty of charg­ing infra­struc­ture and range anx­i­ety were caus­es of con­cern for con­sumers still unsure about mak­ing the tran­si­tion. But with­in the past two years, demon­strat­ing the speed and size of the mar­ket, the land­scape has changed. Range anx­i­ety has fad­ed, while ques­tions of con­ve­nience, reli­a­bil­i­ty, loca­tion and the all-round charg­ing expe­ri­ence have tak­en prece­dence.

Future-proofing a rapidly expanding HPC network

Since IONITY’s first charg­ing sta­tion opened in 2018, its high-pow­er charg­ing (HPC) net­work has grown to account for more than 300 sta­tions, with over 1,200 indi­vid­ual charge points across a tar­get­ed Euro­pean foot­print of 24 coun­tries.

Michael Hajesch, chief exec­u­tive of IONITY, says: “Intense research and heavy invest­ments into the loca­tions of IONITY’s charg­ing sta­tions have been com­ple­ment­ed by the devel­op­ment of state-of-the-art tech­nolo­gies, to ensure a future-proof and sus­tain­able net­work.”

The resul­tant award-win­ning charg­ers offer up to 350kW of 100 per cent renew­able ener­gy and mul­ti-brand com­pat­i­bil­i­ty, by using the Euro­pean stan­dard  CCS (Com­bined Charg­ing Sys­tem).

Hajesch says: “This bench­mark in terms of charg­ing capac­i­ty can’t even be met by any present­ly avail­able vehi­cle in the mar­ket. But con­sid­er­ing the industry’s speed of tra­jec­to­ry, there is a need to be ready for future mar­ket growth and advance­ments in bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy.”

Unlike tra­di­tion­al vehi­cles, EVs can be charged any­where, at home, work­places and through­out cities. From the start, IONITY has focused on what the com­pa­ny believes is the miss­ing piece of the puz­zle for wide­spread EV adop­tion: charg­ing along motor­ways.

As a result, just three years after IONITY was found­ed, the chal­lenge of long-dis­tance trav­el has most­ly been over­come.

Customer-centred design for everyday charging

“Loca­tion is key to estab­lish­ing EVs as a viable alter­na­tive, incor­po­rat­ing fac­tors such as site lay­out or dig­i­tal ser­vices for pay­ment.”

“These aspects need to be tak­en into account to ful­fil a very real ide­al that the charg­ing expe­ri­ence improves our con­sumers’ jour­neys.”

While the com­pa­ny keeps build­ing more sta­tions across Europe, IONITY has start­ed to devel­op a strate­gic growth path on how to improve and per­fect their ‘ener­gy sta­tions’ of the future. Hajesch explains: “The beau­ty of emo­bil­i­ty is it can be seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed into every­day life and that’s one of our main focus­es.”

“The oth­er is all about qual­i­ty. This means excel­lence in oper­a­tions and per­fect­ing the user expe­ri­ence: reli­a­bil­i­ty, ease of use and a vari­ety of pay­ment options.”

IONITY’s ambi­tions and com­mit­ment to estab­lish­ing a reli­able EV charg­ing infra­struc­ture will pave the way for this tran­si­tion from avail­abil­i­ty to habit­u­al com­fort of a net­work that cus­tomers will become famil­iar with in the years to come.

Hajesch con­tin­ues: “The future of pas­sen­ger road trans­port is 100 per cent elec­tric. Now, the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of charg­ing infra­struc­ture is key to con­vince cus­tomers this future is not only achiev­able, but has already begun.”

As IONITY con­tin­ues to build and expand Europe’s lead­ing HPC charg­ing net­work, the con­stant increase in EV adop­tion means its work is only just start­ing. With new EV sales fore­cast to reach 44 mil­lion vehi­cles a year by 2030, invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties become clear.

Hajesch con­cludes: “It’s an excit­ing time for IONITY. We’re a dri­ving force behind the tran­si­tion from installing EV charg­ing infra­struc­ture where need­ed, to it being so inte­grat­ed in every­day life that it becomes sec­ond nature.”

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it ionity.eu

Pro­mot­ed by IONITY