Volkswagen strengthens electricity grid by adopting Tesla By Reuters

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© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: View of the tower of the German car manufacturer Volkswagen ID.3 electric car warehouse in Dresden, Germany, June 8, 2021. Photograph taken with a fish eye lens. REUTERS / Matthias Rietschel / File photo
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By Vera Eckert, Christoph Steitz and Tom Käckenhoff
FRANKFURT / DUESSELDORF (Reuters) – Volkswagen (DE 🙂 wants to double its payload and energy division staff by expanding new payment technology next year and making more alliances to take Tesla (NASDAQ 🙂 into a key electric vehicle (EV). ) battlefield: energy infrastructure.
By making sure there are enough fast-charging plugs – and enough power – for the electric vehicles it wants to sell, Europe’s largest carmaker hopes to convince drivers worried about battery batches that they can leave fossil fuel cars for good.
Emphasizing its electric ambition, Volkswagen has brought together energy industry veteran Elke Temme, who spent nearly two decades at German energy companies RWE and Innogy, to help the carmaker Tesla take over.
Working since January, Temme, 53, has been tasked with combining the car manufacturer’s various energy activities, such as getting energy, charging cars at home and on the road, and selling the electricity they need.
This will require more staff and Temme wants to double the staff of Volkswagen’s European cargo and energy division known as Elli to around 300 in 2022, which has tripled this year, he told Reuters in an interview.
“We are investing in huge growth areas that should not always be profitable. We always see these investments in the overall context of our team’s strategy,” he said. “That’s why building a comprehensive infrastructure is key.”
Temme declined to specify the budget provided, but Volkswagen, led by Tesla Admiral Herbert Diess, said it has accepted investment requests for the division, as it also sells home battery storage systems similar to Tesla’s Powerwall.
Volkswagen is leading the world with investment plans for electric vehicles and batteries by 2030, according to a Reuters analysis https://reut.rs/3wQop01, and plans to spend 35 billion euros on electric batteries by 2025. EV and battery investments, https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-UN/AUTOS-EV/jnvwexwgqvw/chart.png
CATCH PLAYING
But many analysts believe that in terms of networks of fast chargers, which are essential for electric vehicles to get into power, VW has a lot to do.
Tesla has been rolling out high-performance Superchargers for years and has a global network of about 30,000 fast chargers that can deliver 200 km (125 miles) in 15 minutes.
The company said in October that its network has doubled in the last 18 months, and will triple in the next two years.
Volkswagen, meanwhile, expects its quad-speed charger network to nearly quadruple to around 45,000 by 2025 – with the goal of innovating Tesla EV as a global market leader – with 18,000 EV pumps in Europe, 17,000 in China and 10,000 in North America.
Volkswagen said in March that it already plans to spend 400 million euros to expand its fast-charging network on the continent.
But this is a drop in the ocean to expand the continent’s charging infrastructure to the continent by the € 5 billion it needs every year by 2040, and the pressure is on the strength of public services and governments.
In Europe, the Volkswagen Group is a shareholder in the EU fast-charging company Ionity, along with carmakers BMW, Daimler (OTC 🙂 Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Hyundai.
It has also teamed up with energy companies like Italy Enel (MI :), the British BP (NYSE 🙂 and the Spanish Iberdrola (OTC 🙂 to cover the geographical gaps and complete the model of how to distribute EV infrastructure financing among industries.
“A variety of models can be thought of, from product collaboration and joint ventures to M&A,” Temm said. Global automotive EV and battery investment, https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-UN/AUTOS-EV/myvmnkgmypr/chart.png
CARS AND POWER
Tesla has already shown that when it comes to electric vehicles, selling cars doesn’t cut it. In some US states it has adopted a model that offers everything to customers, from battery storage from cars to solar panels and electricity https://reut.rs/3FjTlc2.
Volkswagen is selling electricity to retail customers who drive EVs or plug-in hybrids. One of its tariffs – which is available to non-VW-owned customers – has attracted more than 10,000 customers since its launch in July, Temme said.
He said VW intended to make its fast chargers available to all EV drivers, unlike the supercharging network that Tesla has so far maintained only for Tesla drivers, except for one pilot program in the Netherlands.
“We’re pursuing a different approach than Tesla when it comes to expanding charging infrastructure,” Temm said.
“We want an open and discriminatory charging network, and we will develop our services to make our offering more convenient, simple, attractive.”
Volkswagen says its vision is open to all that buyers of its electric vehicles can charge at more than 250,000 charging points across Europe, from different suppliers with different charging speeds.
The problem is that charging protocols and payment methods can vary between vendors, making the act of supplying an EV time consuming and confusing.
Starting in the first quarter of 2022, Volkswagen plans to offer “Plug & Charge” technology in Europe to make the process smoother.
The car will store the owner’s payment details and make a contactless payment when the charging plug is connected to the EV at the service designated areas.
Despite new challenges for established carmakers, Temm, who saw a sudden shift away from nuclear services in Germany after the Fukushima disaster, believes they can be overcome.
“Utilities need to reinvent themselves and move from nuclear and coal to renewables. In the automotive industry, including Volkswagen, the question now is how to continually shift attention from conventional vehicles to sustainable mobility,” he said.
“These challenges are similar in size.”
($ 1 = 0.8738 euro)
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