Shell Germany and Volkswagen Group join forces to promote expansion of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles: a few days ago the first innovative charging station Ellie Flexpolewith a capacity of 150 kW, was put into operation at the Shell service station in Göttingen, Germany.

“Thanks to the Volkswagen Elli Flexpole charging stations, we can make an important contribution to the necessary expansion of the charging infrastructure in places where it would otherwise be difficult to charge quickly”– said Tobias Bahnsen, head of Shell E-Mobility in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Elli Flexpole: the first innovative charging station

The Volkswagen Elli Flexpole charging station has a unique battery storage system that allows you to connect to a low-voltage network. Thus, this new technology allows easy and flexible installation of charging stations to speed up the expansion of the European network of charging stations.

Indeed, the German government has set itself the goal of having at least one million charging stations available to electric car drivers by 2030. But the expansion of charging infrastructure is lagging because of the need for special electrical transformers that require longer delivery times.

The Elli Flexpole solution overcomes this obstacle: Flexpole chargers can be is connected directly to the low voltage networkthanks to their system built-in battery, without the need for a special transformer or expensive construction work. This significantly reduces the installation time of the charging station.

Elli Flexpole: fast and easy charging

At the same time, Flexpole charging stations allow charging speeds of up to up to 150 kW. Depending on the car, the range can be restored to 160 kilometers in just 10 minutes.

After the successful first test, Shell and Volkswagen also plan to install Flexpole charging stations at other sites in Germany and the rest of Europe.

The goal of the Volkswagen concern is to become a leading provider of a smart charging and energy ecosystem: by 2025, the German group plans to offer a total of 45,000 powerful charging pointswith a capacity of up to 350 kW, of which 25,000 will be available from the end of 2023.