Ionity opens 300th EU wide High Power Charging location
This is a story that would’ve been written during a fast charging session somewhere far from home. It’ll have to wait! Earlier this year I have been enjoying lots of Ionity charging sessions.
The big news today:
IONITY opens Lacq Audéjos Nord (FR)
Which is their 300th station in Europe!
Since it’s a French autoroute location the station includes one classic 50kW triple charger for full redundancy. Travelers with older ZOE or LEAF models will be enjoying the AC and CHAdeMO connectors (at a lower price when using the Ionity-app: €0,40/min). Obviously best would be to bring your Zero motorbike!
A bit of history
When 2019 was all done and Ionity made it to 200 locations in just one and a half years expectations were pretty high. The goal was set at 400 sites by the end of this year and then March came. The world has clearly changed, do we still need these 350kW chargers? Will they be future-proof?
Lockdown slowdown
Even with Europe on shutdown for quite some time this year, Ionity has been steadily increasing the charger base. Right now for example thirteen stations are still under construction in France. With 63 French locations already up and running and 80 promised for 2020 I’m still hoping for more announcements even in the short term.
I visited many IONITY stations in France this year, without them driving as fast and free as I did would’ve been simply impossible.
IONITY in Germany
The so called home market if you will (with the HQ in Munich). Lots of noise after the price bump back in January. Yet of course Ionity is here to make you consider the EQC, ID.3, e-tron, Taycan among many others. Right now IONITY operates 94 stations in Germany with another six under construction!
The fastest charging session I ever had was in Germany this Summer at Ionity Salzbergen adding 52kWh in thirteen minutes, during the third #BerlinChallenge:
The competition
Fastned has 100+ stations and will expand to Switzerland later this year (just last month they started out in Belgium). EnBW is offering more HPC’s everyday in Germany with their app now supporting paying for your charging in many European countries.
These parties have recently opened some serious charging hubs in Germany, I visited Fastned during the festivities!
Pricing
As you might know I like to keep a close eye on prices. Back in Summer if you were reading my blog/newsletter you could’ve traveled to Budapest and back for 30 euros! Here’s hoping for plenty more summers to come with great pricing opportunities in a competitive market.
My Ionity pricing page is still up to date if you want to find out the best offers. Plus I started a page about European fast charging prices in general since there’s more to life than just the fastest ones of course. If you think I’m missing something, do join the conversation on Twitter or just get in touch!
Newsletter
There is a huge newsletter coming up pretty soon, sign up so you won’t miss it!