Shell Dramatically Expands Its Network of EV Charging Stations

Shell has plans to increase its electric vehicle charging network, Shell Recharge, from 140,000 global charge points today to over 500,000 by 2025.Last week, the oil company finalized its purchase of the Volta charging network, which operates in 31 U.S. states. Shell now “owns and operates one of the largest public electric vehicle (EV) charging networks in the U.S.”Shell paid $169 million cash for Volta. Shell made $40 billion in profits in 2022.

The EVs haven’t taken over just yet, but oil companies are interested in being there whether you’re pumping fuel or electrons into your car.

This week, Shell USA finalized its acquisition of Volta. This electric-vehicle charging network company specializes in pairing charging plug locations with advertising screens, often at high-traffic areas like retailers and stadiums. These ads cover most of the cost of charging at Volta stations, but Volta did have plans to offer more paid DC fast-charge outlets. Volta said late last year that it had more than 5700 of these “out-of-home screens” in its network of over 3000 charging stalls in the U.S. Volta operates in 31 U.S. states and territories and regularly supplies around 112,000 charging sessions to EV drivers each month.

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Volta and Shell announced the $169 million acquisition in January. That comes out to just 86 cents a share. This purchase price was well under the stock’s $15 high from early 2021 and was also below the $2.50 share price Volta was hovering at in mid-2022 before it dropped in September and October.

Even though Volta’s value was already declining, the market saw January’s announcement as troubling news, causing multiple EV charging company stocks to lose value, at least temporarily. On top of the $169 million in cash that Shell paid to acquire Volta, the oil company also repaid Volta’s $11 million in third-party debts and also gave Volta $20 million in subordinated secured term loans “to support Volta’s balance sheet and bridge Volta through the closing of the transaction.”

Shell Can Afford It . . .

Buying Volta wasn’t a financial challenge for Shell, which made more money selling oil last year than at any point in its long history. The company recorded $40 billion in profits in 2022, due partly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that led to dramatically higher oil and gas prices. The company paid its CEO almost $12 million last year.

Shell is not entering the EV charging game with this chump-change purchase of Volta. The oil company will roll Volta’s charge points into its existing EV charging network, the Shell Recharge network. Currently, in the U.S. Shell Recharge is primarily geographically limited to California. Following the Volta deal, Shell said it “now owns and operates one of the largest public electric vehicle (EV) charging networks in the U.S.”

Globally, Shell operates over 140,000 public and private charge points, and the oil company has announced plans to expand its global EV charging network to more than 500,000 charge points by 2025. It has an even more ambitious target of around 2.5 million charge points installed by 2030.

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Contributing Editor

Sebastian Blanco has been writing about electric vehicles, hybrids, and hydrogen cars since 2006. His articles and car reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Automotive News, Reuters, SAE, Autoblog, InsideEVs, Trucks.com, Car Talk, and other outlets. His first green-car media event was the launch of the Tesla Roadster, and since then he has been tracking the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles and discovering the new technology’s importance not just for the auto industry, but for the world as a whole. Throw in the recent shift to autonomous vehicles, and there are more interesting changes happening now than most people can wrap their heads around. You can find him on Twitter or, on good days, behind the wheel of a new EV.