Oil major BP buys UK's biggest charging network

In October 2017, Shell bought the electric vehicle (EV) charging company NewMotion in preparation for reduced dependence on oil as a fuel. Now, British oil and gas company BP has acquired EV charging company Chargemaster. After this acquisition, the company would be rebranded as BP Chargemaster.

Chargemaster is UK's largest public EV charging company. It operates over 6,500 units across the country. The company also designs, manufactures, sells and maintains EV chargers for various locations including home based chargers.

BP plans to use the technology from Chargemaster to install 150 kW fast chargers at 1,200 service stations it operates in the UK. The chargers are expected to add 160 km of range in 10 minutes. The company plans to install these within the next year.

BP is expecting over 1.2 crore EVs on the roads of UK by 2040. As of 2017, there were around 1,35,000 EVs registered in the UK.

Last year, Great Britain, France, Germany and China announced plans to phase out conventionally powered cars and move towards some form of electrification. Automobile manufacturers like Volvo have already announced their plans for manufacturing EVs.