Shell Buys EV Charging Station Company

Royal Dutch Shell (LSE:RDSA) has signed an agreement to buy Netherlands-based electric vehicle (EV) charging services provider NewMotion.
According to the companies, the deal “will enable [them] to accelerate the transition to low-carbon transport.” NewMotion sees the transaction enhancing its ability to deliver more innovative smart-charging solutions to homes, businesses and public parking spaces.
“We are very pleased to have such a strong investor that fully supports our mission, enabling us to further expand across Europe at a time when the transition to electric vehicles is gathering pace,” Sytse Zuidema, CEO of NewMotion, said in a press release.

NewMotion has built over 30,000 charge points in Europe, making its network the continent’s largest public EV charging network. A total of 75,000 people use the network, using an app to locate stations.
Shell has started to incorporate charging stations into its 45,000 service stations around the world, but with the acquisition of NewMotion it will be able to sell power to people charging their vehicles at home or at work. According to Zuidema, at least 80 percent of charging is expected to take place at homes and offices when cars are not in use.
“We recognise that one of the themes of the energy transition is going to be electrification,” Matthew Tipper, Shell’s vice president for new fuels, told the Financial Times. In a press release he emphasized that Shell is committed to helping people “access a range of refuelling choices over the coming decades.” A monetary value for the deal has not been disclosed.
Shell expects about a quarter of the world’s car fleet to be electric by 2040. To reach that level, demand for EVs will rise substantially in the coming years — Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) estimates that 1 to 3 million public charging stations could be needed in Europe by 2030, up from 100,000 currently.
Already companies and countries are setting the wheels in motion for the transition. A number of carmakers have recently promised that their fleets will offer electric options for every model by no later than 2025, and nations worldwide are doing their best to incentivize EV ownership.
Just this week, officials in Paris pledged to ban all gas and diesel-fueled cars by 2030, a decade ahead of the rest of the country. Next month, the European Union will outline new rules for CO2 emissions that will come into force in 2021. According to the European Comission, cars are responsible for about 12 percent of all CO2 emissions in the region.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Shaw, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.