ABB to deliver 117 electric vehicle charging stations for German motorways

ZURICH (Reuters) - ABB will deliver 117 electric vehicle charging stations to German utility EnBW, the Swiss engineering company said on Wednesday.

Power utilities such as EnBW, tech start-ups and oil majors are vying to become dominant players in the fast-growing business of charging stations.

These are now increasingly being installed on Europe’s motorways to accommodate a new generation of electric vehicles from makers such as Tesla, Porsche (VOWG_p.DE) and BMW with long range batteries.

ABB, which has delivered more than 5,000 networked charging systems for passenger cars and commercial vehicles worldwide, said this latest EnBW order follows a previous order from the utility for 68 of them last year.

They are due to be installed at service station operator Tank & Rast locations by the end of the year.

Tank & Rast operates about 350 filling stations and 390 service areas on German autobahns, according to its website.

“The need to rapidly expand the charging infrastructure network has once again been shown during this year’s International Motor Show in Frankfurt, where nearly all automotive companies have announced a massive expansion of their electric vehicle ranges,” ABB Chief Executive Ulrich Spiesshofer said in a statement.

Previously, charging stations had been concentrated in cities, but Europe has been pushing for cross-country networks.

In 2014, ABB and partners joined the public-private European Long-distance Electric Clean Transport Road Infrastructure Corridor initiative aimed at linking EU member states with electric vehicle charging equipment.