Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging providers across Europe have formed an EV charging partnership to facilitate the consumer experience.
The EV charging partnership was initiated by Allego, EVBox and NewMotion; with other participants including Charge4Europe, Chargemap, ChargePoint, Engenie, Franklin Energy and Travelcard. The partners have signed a letter of intent declaring their commitment to open up their EV charging infrastructure, allowing users to use chargepoints operated by any of the letter’s signatories through a single subscription. The agreement is based on the Open Charge Point Interface, an open source, standardised protocol implemented across much of the EU’s EV charging sector.
The roaming partnership agreement, which is set to be fully implemented by the end of 2019, will cover EV users in the Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the UK. As well as enabling consumers to use EV chargepoints operated by any of the partners, the signatories have agreed to make the data gathered by chargepoints freely available to each other, meaning that drivers will be able to see the location, availability and cost of chargepoints covered by the agreement. By streamlining the process of finding, using and paying for EV chargepoints, the partners hope to increase the uptake of electric mobility across Europe through improving the consumer experience and alleviating range anxiety.
Sytse Zuidema, CEO of NewMotion, said: “This agreement is a big victory for current UK and Nordic EV drivers that will help stimulate EV growth in the regions. NewMotion’s wider experience in Europe, where we have a public network of over 118,000 charge points, has shown that making charging more accessible and easy helps encourage EV adoption. As such, we’re excited to be part of a partnership that will no doubt help drive EV adoption in the UK and Nordic countries.”
The EV charging partnership noted that it welcomes the participation of other charging operators.
