Shell USA is best known for its gas stations. It is now buying the electric vehicle charging network Volta by buying all of its common stock for cash. The $169 million deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023.
Since Royal Dutch Shell bought Greenlots in 2019, Volta is the second US electric vehicle charging company to join the Shell brand. Volta runs 3,050 destination chargers in 31 states and Europe at the moment. The press release says that the company already has plans to add 3,400 more stalls over an unspecified amount of time.
Last year, Tesla customers were happier with their Level 2 chargers than those from Volta. It mostly runs stations in high-traffic retail parking lots where EV drivers can charge their cars for free and earn money from ads.
Shell bought one of the few electric vehicle (EV) charging networks in the US, which is now owned by an oil and gas company. Another charging network, EVgo, used to be a part of the oil and gas company NRG Energy. In 2020, electric and natural gas company LS Power bought EVgo from NRG Energy. Volkswagen owns Electrify America. Volkswagen makes mostly gas and diesel cars, but it has promised to switch to EVs only within the next 10 years.
Together, Volta, which will soon be owned by Shell USA, and Greenlots, which is now called Shell Recharge Solutions and was owned by Shell New Energies, add up to more than 57,000 charging spots under the yellow and red scallop. Shell New Energies is also working on other projects that use alternative forms of energy, like wind farms in the ocean off the coast of New Jersey.
Shell also makes e-scooters, battery banks, and other things that don’t have to do with gas on a smaller scale. It will have to keep trying to get as much green business as it can because the government in Europe wants it to cut down on pollution.
