No One Else Built Charging Stations, So Automakers Will Do It
After years of hesitation, the car industry understands it needs to create refueling networks for electric vehicles.
A Tesla supercharger in California.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Just a few years ago, automakers had a largely uniform response to questions about the construction of refueling stations for electric vehicles: “Not my job.” Today, they’re starting to realize that no one else is going to build stations at the scale needed to stimulate sales of battery-powered cars, so they’ll have to do it themselves. “Charging infrastructure is a bottleneck,” says Andreas Tschiesner, head of the European automotive practice at McKinsey & Co. Carmakers are “ready to get the ball rolling because nothing is happening on its own.”
Volkswagen, Daimler, Ford Motor, and BMW have teamed up to create Ionity, a company that’s building charging stations across Europe. VW has formed Electrify America, a unit that will spend $2 billion on stations in the U.S., and the German company is considering a similar operation in China. Porsche is installing chargers at dealerships and is working with BMW and Siemens to develop ultrafast charging. And Japan’s big manufacturers have set up a company to promote installation of quick chargers.