By Ron Bousso
LONDON (Reuters) – BP launched on Thursday Britain’s largest electric vehicle charging hub near Birmingham, capable of serving up to 180 cars.
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The hub, located on the intersection of three motorways in central England, includes 30 ultra-fast 300 kilowatt charging stations, which can add 100 miles (160.93 km)of driving range in 15 minutes, as well as 150 7kw slow-charging points.
It is part of a plan to invest 1 billion pounds ($1.25 billion) this decade to build hundreds of EV charging hubs in the country, Akira Kirton, CEO of BP Pulse, the company’s UK EV charging arm, told Reuters.
BP Pulse uses 100% renewable power at its charging stations, Kirton said.
EV charging is a central pillar in BP CEO Bernard Looney’s energy transition plan, targeting returns of 15%.
Kirton would not comment on the expected returns from EV charging hubs, but said that “we see really good utilization at our sites and we absolutely have a number of our sites that are profitable.”
($1 = 0.7997 pounds)
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
