Volkswagen sold a minority stake in its electric vehicle charging division, Electrify America, to Siemens in a deal that values the company at $2.45 billion. The two companies are investing $450 million together to double the number of Electrify America charging stations in the US and Canada by 2026. (The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.)
The news comes amid a spike in US sales of EVs, though they still represent a fraction of total auto sales. It also comes as the Biden administration, fueled with $5 billion in funding as part of the president’s infrastructure plan, embarks on a plan to build 500,000 EV chargers by 2030.
The news comes amid spike in US EV sales
That plan will rely heavily on investment from private partners, such as Volkswagen’s Electrify America, which operates more than 730 charging locations and more than 2,438 individual charging units as of March 2022. And those partners themselves will need partners to build the massive costs of a full charging network from scratch. DC fast chargers that deliver up to 350 kW of power can cost $250,000 to install depending on location.
Siemens’ minority stake in Electrify America is “a small three-digit investment of a million USD,” the companies said, though they declined to disclose the exact figure. The German company will also have a seat on the board of directors of Electrify America.
Siemens, which has said it plans to build 1 million EV chargers in the US, is Electrify America’s first outside investor. VW founded the company in the wake of the Dieselgate scandal, in which the automaker installed software in its vehicles to mislead government pollution tests.
VW says the plan is to “more than double Electrify America’s charging infrastructure to 1,800 locations and 10,000 fast chargers by 2026.” The company is also building a series of new “human-centric” charging stations in California and New York, complete with awnings and a lounge-style waiting area.
Charging electric vehicles in the US is difficult and intensely fragmented, especially for people who don’t own a Tesla. There are approximately 41,000 public charging stations in the United States, with more than 100,000 outlets. But it can be challenging to find, say, one that actually works or isn’t locked in a locked parking garage.
This post VW sells minority stake in Electrify America to Siemens
was original published at “https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/28/23186289/vw-sells-minority-stake-electrify-america-siemens-ev-charging”