Anglo-Royal Dutch Shell, the Dutch oil company, announced Wednesday plans to construct up to 50,000 electric car charging stations in the United Kingdom over the next several years.
Shell stated in a statement that its Ubitricity subsidiary hopes to meet the objective by late 2025 as part of the company’s shift to green energy.
Ubitricity, launched in Germany in 2008 and acquired by Shell earlier this year, provides on-street electric car charging throughout Europe.
It currently has 3,600 charging points in the UK, which use existing public infrastructure like bollards and lampposts.
“The move is part of a larger commitment to provide more electric car charging availability to the millions of UK drivers who do not have private parking and to assist local authorities in getting their charging networks up and operating as soon as possible,” Shell stated.
The UK government’s Office of Zero-Emission Vehicles now covers 75% of the cost of installing on-street electric car charging stations.
The oil company is willing to cover the remaining expenses for local governments to construct Ubitricity charging stations.
As part of its attempts to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the United Kingdom intends to prohibit the sale of high-polluting diesel and gasoline vehicles beginning in 2030.
This has sparked a flurry of investment in electric vehicle production facilities as well as charging infrastructure.
In 2018, rival UK oil company BP purchased EV charging business Chargemaster, betting on rising demand in the next decades.
Following a court ruling in the Netherlands, Shell said in June that it will expedite measures to reduce carbon emissions.
Shell was ordered by a court in The Hague to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030, in a major win for climate campaigners with ramifications for oil companies globally.
