A charging station for electric cars in Beijing. Photo / Getty
A charging station for electric cars in Beijing. Photo / Getty
A "supercharging" highway for electric cars across Europe will open for business this year after Germany's BMW, Daimler and VW joined up with Ford.
The car makers have formed a joint venture called Ionity, which aims to build 400 charging stations over the next three years.
The first 20 stations will open this year in Austria, Germany and Norway at 75-mile (120km) intervals along major roads, with plans for 100 stations operating across other countries by 2018.
A comprehensive network of charging stations would make electric cars more viable, eliminating the need to plan circuitous routes to use existing facilities.
According to Department for Transport data, the average length of a car journey in the UK is about seven miles (11.2km), a fraction of the range of most electric cars.
However, "range anxiety" - the worry that an electric car will not have sufficient power to complete a journey and could leave motorists stranded away from charging facilities - is a factor holding back their wider adoption.
Introduction of comprehensive charging networks will make electric vehicles more practical for longer trips.
Each Ionity charger will have a 350KW capacity, which will cut the amount of time it takes to top up an electric vehicle compared with conventional systems.
It will also be "brand agnostic", meaning that it will be capable of charging all makes of current and future electric vehicles.
Chief executive of Ionity Michael Hajesch said the system would "play an essential role in establishing a market for electric vehicles".
A lack of chargers contributes to 'range anxiety' for drivers of electric cars. Photo / Getty
He added, "Ionity will deliver our common goal of providing customers with fast charging and digital payment capability, to facilitate long-distance travel".
Other companies will be invited to join Ionity to expand its coverage.
British company Chargemaster, which builds electric car chargers and operates a 300-point network of rapid chargers in the UK, said the 350 kilowatt (kW) chargers could be over engineered for most motorists' needs.
Chargemaster chief executive David Martell added, "we are focused on deploying solutions for the mass market, the rapid charging standard for which is currently 50kW, moving to 150kW in the future.
"While some vehicles in the future may be able to charge at 350kW, this will not be the case for most vehicles. Unlike when refuelling a car, drivers can do other things while their EV is charging, so the charging time is not as great an issue as it is sometimes portrayed."
Go Ultra Low, the joint government and industry campaign which aims to get more people to buy electric vehicles, described as "fantastic" major car makers working together to increase the viability of motorists using battery-powered cars.
Poppy Welch - head of the campaign - said "the UK has already more than 13,500 chargepoint connectors including more than 1000 rapid chargers, making it the one of the largest rapid chargepoint networks in Europe.
"With more than 120,000 pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars already on UK roads, it's good to see the network continuing and keeping up with increasing demand."
