[blackwasp]

The multinational oil and gas company Shell has signed an agreement to buy the electric vehicle charging company NewMotion. The company has not divulged any further information on this deal.

NewMotion currently has over 30,000 charging points at homes and offices in countries like Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK. The company will become the wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell.

Earlier this year, Great Britain, France, Germany and now even China issued deadlines to phase out conventionally powered cars and migrate towards some form of electrification, be it hybrid or pure-electric vehicles. Back home in India, the government is considering an electric only car policy going into the future. Working towards this, they had invited car makers to supply them with 10,000 electric vehicles. Tata bagged this contract and will supply Tigor based electric vehicles over the next year. Automakers like Volvo have already announced their electrification plans as well.

Shell's Vice President for New Fuels, Matthew Tipper said that this acquisition will give their customers the facility to charge their EV's at their homes, offices or elsewhere. The company's CEO, Ben van Beurden has maintained that the oil company is preparing for the day when oil sales start to decline. He has also said that the company will aggressively look at opportunities to stay ahead of competitors despite the decreasing dependence on oil for energy.



Source: The Associated Press

Link to Team-BHP News

[abhishek46]

That's the future, and there is no running away from it!
Recent announcements by various EU nations have only cemented the writing on the wall.

Shell has wisely taken this step, to protect it's 'shell'.

[sri_tesla]

Shell announced earlier this year they will install charging stations at their gas stations (petrol bunks). Purchase of NewMotion, which is one of the largest electric vehicle charging networks in Europe means, its definitely sign of the times.

https://electrek.co/2017/02/01/shell...-gas-stations/

Installation started in few places. Below link shows the London station.

https://electrek.co/2017/09/27/shell...-gas-stations/


Another oil major British Petroleum also announced earlier that they are in talks with car companies to deploy charging points at their gas stations.

[OrangeCar]

In essence, Shell was, is and will continue to be an 'Energy' company.

Heartening to see that Shell is recognizing the shift, however small & gradual it might seem now.

Kudos to Shell's management. It looks like 'Oil is here to stay' ego has not come to play.

[SmartCat]

While setting up EV charging stations at petrol pumps sounds like the most logical thing to do, isn't it the most illogical move when you consider -

1) Time taken to charge a car
2) Parking space available

With the space available at petrol pumps, they can manage the situation because it takes approximately two minutes to handle a petrol/diesel customer. How much time does it take to handle a EV customer?

45 minutes?

[AJITHAAA]

The European oil companies have begun the shift towards renewable energy and they are using technology developed in the oil & gas industry to good effect in the renewable energy sector. EON from Germany is using the offshore drilling platform anchoring technique to anchor windmills offshore. They even have communities participate in renewable energy production with roof top solar panels.

Guess who is a major sponsor for the Mahindra E racing team.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by smartcat

1) Time taken to charge a car
2) Parking space available

With the space available at petrol pumps, they can manage the situation because it takes approximately two minutes to handle a petrol/diesel customer. How much time does it take to handle a EV customer?

45 minutes?

Very valid question.

I had read somewhere that the technologies ate evolving for fast charging. One of them is ultracapacitor based charging. This was being worked upon for charging the electric urban transport bus at the intermediate stops as well as the terminus.

Unless quick charging is available, customers are not going to embrace electric cars.

But fast charge is not the only challange. Other challanges for electric car include:

Getting betteries with high charge:weight ratio. Lithium Ion and Lithium Ion Polymer batteries are there but traction batteries of this type are not easily available.

Containing the battery cost within practically affordable limits. Today, what I save in petrol cost, will get wiped out when I go to replace the battery. And battery cost is a big amount to spend in one go, unlike the petrol cost.

Providing adequate torque for the cars maintaining reasonable buying cost and running cost. This can be addressed by having a gearbox.

[abhishek46]

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

Containing the battery cost within practically affordable limits. Today, what I save in petrol cost, will get wiped out when I go to replace the battery. And battery cost is a big amount to spend in one go, unlike the petrol cost.

Providing adequate torque for the cars maintaining reasonable buying cost and running cost. This can be addressed by having a gearbox.

In an IC engine, we replace only damaged parts like clutch, flywheels, piston rings etc over time.
However, unlike IC engines, batteries do not have small child parts. When batteries degenerate, they have to be replaced, completely.

My neighbor owned 2 Reva cars. Both of them are lying in the service center since months, awaiting parts and 'compatible' batteries.
Replacing batteries and motors in an electric vehicle is an expensive affair, and unless those prices come down, mass market may not embrace them.

[Turbanator]

isn't it the most illogical move when you consider

In the Indian context, definitely especially given the size of Pumps in Metros. But on some of the large ones on highways where they have food joints and utility services, it may be possible to have parking cum charging space for multiple vehicles. Similarly overseas there are many large pumps on highways and within city limits and can offer these charging points easily.

I have seen some practical offerings by Tesla, they have installed many such charging points on famous Malls and even parking lots of Ikea. This looks far workable, you go shopping or movie and by the time you are back, your cars are charged and all this for Free at least for a while, thereafter Malls or other stores can easily recover such charges, even in India, Malls can surely add these stations on some of the parking lots.

Unfortunately we still don't have white line markers separating the lanes and 99 % or more people don't understand or want to drive in Lanes and concept of Yielding is alien. All this was different many Years ago when there were the only fraction of vehicles, I remember 3 decades back, while learning scooter/ Car how we were taught importance of checking traffic while entering any main road or intersection or right of way on a roundabout, all this has simply gone somewhere from bad to worst.

[GTO]

Sign of the times indeed .

Originally Posted by smartcat

isn't it the most illogical move when you consider -

1) Time taken to charge a car
2) Parking space available

Rahul mentioned fast charging and it's only going to improve with time. A 15 minute charge giving you 150 km should be realistic one day. It anyway takes us at least 10 minutes today to fill our cars up if you include the oil checking etc. which EVs don't need.

Once EVs go mass market, their batteries will become commodities. I see more manufacturers offering quick battery swaps (as Tesla had introduced).

[akshaymahajan]

Sharing Tesla's official Battery swap video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY