Ultra E, a project born out of an alliance between European carmakers, utilities and other companies, announced today the deployment of 25 new charging station for electric vehicles along the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). The network will be using the Combined Charging System (CCS) charging standard and it will be connecting the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria.
The group is referring to the stations as “Ultra-Fast-Charging†and claims that they have a power output of “up to 350kW†or more than twice the capacity of the currently most powerful dc fast-chargers available.
Currently, there is no passenger electric car capable of charging at a rate anything close to 350kW, Tesla’s vehicles have the highest capacity at 120kW, but in the meantime, the network will be used by electric buses and trucks which are starting to be deployed.
Electric cars will also be able to use the system with a charge rate of 50kW, but the Ultra-E alliance expects that passenger cars capable of charging at 350kW will arrive by 2018 – when the project is expected to be completed. This will result in adding about 190 miles (300 km) of range in about 20 minutes.
Several automakers are part of the initiative including, Audi, BMW and Renault. Audi is part of the Volkswagen Group, like Porsche, who is developing a charging infrastructure with a similar capacity. Allego GmbH is the company building and deploying the station.
Dr. Marcus Groll, Director High Power Charging at Allego, stated: “We are very happy to start the Ultra-E project with a strong partner consortium now and thereby build an important first cornerstone for the European Ultra-Fast-Charging infrastructure of the future,â€
The project represents a 13 million euros investment. Half of the money is coming from the fund for the “Connecting Europe Facility†of the European Union and the rest is split between the partners of the Ultra-E alliance: Allego BV (coordinator), Allego BVBA, Allego GmbH, VERBUND AG / SMATRICS, Bayern Innovativ GmbH, Audi AG, BMW AG, Magna, Renault S.A, and Hubject GmbH.