Source: Autoblog

Excerpt:

As part of its energy transition strategy, energy giant Shell plans to shed some of its retail locations, including gasoline stations, to focus more on EV charging sites.

“We are upgrading our retail network, with expanded electric vehicle charging and convenience offers, in response to changing customer needs,” Shell said in its 2024 Energy Transition Strategy report. The company plans to “divest around 500 Shell-owned sites (including joint ventures) a year in 2024 and 2025.” The company’s plans were first reported by Bloomberg News.

The closures will shrink the company’s retail footprint by 2.1%. In 2023, the company operated 47,000 locations.

Shell said it will need to find additional locations or expand the size of current Shell locations in order to boost its charging business. The company said it would spend more on public charging, as opposed to home charging initiatives that are more popular in regions like North America, because Shell believes public charging will be “needed most by our customers.”

Shell said it will be focusing its efforts more in China and Europe, where the EV market is more developed and demand is high for public EV charging stations. Shell says it aims to increase the number of charge points it has from the 54,000 it operates today to 200,000 by 2030.

Currently, Shell’s EV chargers are located at Shell filling stations, on-street locations, and at “mobility hubs” as well as other sites, including supermarkets. In the U.S., the company said its Volta charging acquisition completed in 2023 gave it one of the largest charging networks in the country.

According to Shell’s Recharge EV charging map, the company operates just over 3,700 charging stations in the U.S. with multiple charging plugs at each location. By comparison, Tesla offers around 6,000 charging stations with over 15,000 DC fast-charging plugs and several thousand more Level 2 chargers.

Read more: Shell to unload 1,000 retail locations in pivot to EV charging