Volvo, Fiat, Peugeot, PSA and Jaguar Land Rover set to join Ionity
The Ionity Fast Charge Network for Electric cars, a partnership between BMW, Mercedes, VW and Ford, looks set to get Volvo, Fiat, PSA, JLR – and even Tesla – as partners.
The Ionity Fast Charge Network is a joint venture by BMW, Mercedes, VW and Ford to build a network of fast charge stations across Europe to deliver a fast charge network for electric cars, which will allow EV drivers to travel the length and breadth of Europe and always be able to recharge their batteries – and recharge them quickly.
Ionity’s big mission is to roll out 400 fast charging stations across Europe – including the UK – offering charging rates of up to 350kWh and do all that by 2020. They’ve started – the first Ioniq EV Charging Station has just opened in Germany – and they have 20 other sites all agreed. But that still leaves another 379 sites to secure permits and build in the next two years. But if anyone can hustle agreements from local authorities across Europe in record time, it will be the Germans.
But Ionity’s mission isn’t just to ‘Do a Tesla’ and build a network to charge their own high-performance electric cars – like the Porsche Mission E – but to build a network of charging stations which offer universal charging to a common standard. That means European CCS standard.
That currently excludes the CHAdeMO favoured by car makers like Nissan, and of course Tesla’s own Supercharger system, but this rollout could change minds (it’s all a bit ‘VHS and Betamax’) and it seems even Tesla are in talks with Ionity to make things compatible, especially by the time the Model 3 hits Europe.
But others are now joining the Ionity network – Shell, as we reported a while back, and Q8 are on-board – and Ionity are in talks to add Volvo, Fiat, PSA and Jaguar Land Rover to their partnership which will strengthen the offering and help establish CCS as the dominant plug-in connection across Europe, according to Ionity’s CEO Michael Hajesch, speaking to Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung.
When the network is complete it will eradicate range anxiety for drivers of electric cars – especially high-end electric cars like the Porsche Mission E, Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQ C and Audi e-tron – and finally make EVs a proper alternative to ICE cars although, for those big battery premium cars, it will be a necessity as the option of charging at home will be pretty impractical.
And, we wouldn’t be surprised to find, charging your high-powered EV won’t be exactly cheap.
Statement from Ionity
This statement is cropping up quite frequently:
“Ionity are in talks to add Volvo, Fiat, PSA and Jaguar Land Rover to their partnership which will strengthen the offering and help establish CCS as the dominant plug-in connection across Europe, according to Ionity’s CEO Michael Hajesch, speaking to Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung.”
Unfortunately this is misleading. In the original SZ article , the newspaper makes reference to internal newspaper sources to back up this claim. This is not a statement that was made by Michael Hajesch in the interview. I would be grateful if you could correct this accordingly.
Paul Entwistle, Public Relations IONITY
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