Royal Dutch Shell (OTC:$RYDAF) is getting in on the electric vehicle revolution, starting with offering more electric charging stations across Europe.
The oil company refuses to be left behind when gas vehicles go out of style. Shell has joined IONITY, a joint venture made up of BMW Group (ETR:$BMW), Daimler AG (OTC:$DDAIF), Ford Motor (NYSE:$F), and Volkswagen (OTC:$VLKPF). This deal, fixed to start in 2019, will have the company putting up charging stations for electric vehicles on 80 highway sites, spread over 10 European countries, including Belgium, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Shell isn’t the only company building charging stations in Europe. Tesla (NASDAQ:$TSLA) is in the process of building its largest European Supercharger station in Norway and is looking to expand their stations further into Europe.
Along with building charging stations, Shell is also buying them. Shell bought New Motion, with over 30,000 electric charging stations in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the UK.
Shell is embracing the sweep of the electric vehicle, from building and buying charging stations to owning and driving electric vehicles themselves. CEO Ben van Beurden just became the new owner of a plug-in Mercedes-Benz S500e, and Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl already has a BMW i3 electric car.
With oil companies and car manufacturers supporting the electric vehicle, the industry has nowhere to go but up.
Featured Image: twitter
