Sign of the times? Shell to buy EV charging firm

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