We are definitely seeing a trend in EV charging when the owner of a major gas station chain gets into EV.
Shell USA, best known for its gasoline fill-up stations, is acquiring electric vehicle charging network Volta through a full cash purchase of all its common stock. The transaction, worth $169 million, is set to close in the first half of 2023.
Volta is the second US EV charging company to come under the Shell brand since Greenlots was acquired by Royal Dutch Shell in 2019. Volta currently operates 3,050 destination chargers across 31 states and Europe. According to the press release, the company is already planning to install another 3,400 stalls over an undisclosed period of time.
Shell is one of the only oil and gas companies to get into the space and plans to rename the Volta network to Shell Recharging Solutions.
This all makes sense since "About four-in-ten Americans (42%) say they would be very or somewhat likely to seriously consider purchasing an electric vehicle the next time they’re looking for a new car or truck. A slightly larger share (45%) say they would be not too or not at all likely to do this, while 13% say they do not plan to purchase a vehicle in the future," according to a PEW research study.
Meanwhile, Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for an EV charging coordination system. it appears the problem Ford is trying to solve with this patent is to coordinate and schedule charging. It should be interesting to see what comes out of it.
