Stellantis (STLAM.MI) formed a “Charging & Energy” business unit on Tuesday to help electric vehicle owners capitalize on greener mobility services.
As a still-insufficient charging network across the industry caused “charging anxiety” for all-electric vehicle (E.V.) drivers, the unit will offer a platform called Free2move Charge, providing customer services and access to over 500,000 charging points in Europe “through partners” by the end of the year.
After Ford (F.N.) and General Motors (GM.N) announced accords to implement Tesla’s charging standard (TSLA.O) in North America, the world’s third-largest carmaker reaffirmed that it was still analyzing it.
“We look forward to discussing more of that soon,” said Ricardo Stamatti, senior vice president of the new Charging & Energy Business Unit.
By 2030, Stellantis, which owns Jeep, Ram, Peugeot, Fiat, and Opel, aims to sell 100% battery E.V.s in Europe and 50% in the U.S.
Stamatti said the organization sees financial prospects in charging stations.
“The margin on energy (used for charging points) itself is fairly rich,” said he.
“But ultimately charging is going to be more than energy, it’s going to be about what people do while charging (…), think of advertising, retail, media consumption”.
Stellantis brand consumers and companies will benefit from the Free2move Charge “ecosystem”‘s home charging facility installation help.
Stellantis stated it would provide access to a network of public charging outlets “through partners” in North America, Europe, and other territories to be revealed later.
He noted that energy corporations, retailers, hardware manufacturers, and utilities will be major partners and invest heavily. The business unit’s financial targets will be revealed in 2023.
