19.6.2019. Shortly before the market launch of its pure-electric car-sharing service, WeShare the end of June in Berlin, Volkswagen has completed a strategic partnership with the retail chains Lidl and Kaufland, part of the group of companies Black.
The food retailers are build to 60 Lidl and 10 Kaufland stores in the German capital, a total of 140 public charging points for E – vehicles to their customers. Volkswagen obtains the exclusive right to use the new infrastructure for the Loading of its WeShare fleet outside of the opening Hours over night.
Thus, the efficient utilization of the pillars increases. With the additional load points of Lidl and Kaufland, the public charging infrastructure in Berlin will grow by almost 20 percent.
Christian Senger, the Board of management of the Volkswagen passenger Cars brand with responsibility for the Digital Car and Services: “supermarkets are the fuel of the future. The ability to charge while shopping, is an ideal solution. Sure enough, the e-Golf
an average of just 45 minutes at the fast charging station. We improve together with Lidl and Kaufland, the charging options for customers and especially for our WeShare fleet. This is the next logical step, from Volkswagen, through partnerships of public space nationwide with charging points to equip.“
Wolf Tiedemann, Director of Central services Lidl Germany: “We want to make urban mobility. With our numerous locations of relevant nodes in Berlin, we can build a nationwide network of charging stations. Our customers benefit during the day due to the increasing number of load columns, and we make a meaningful contribution to Mobility in Germany.”
Jörg Dahlke, head of International construction in the country of purchase: “car sharing with electric vehicles must be promoted. Therefore, we make the WeShare fleet outside of the opening Hours very fond of our existing charging stations available. So more people can take advantage of the environment-friendly technology. This is quite clear in the sense of our E-mobility strategy.“
The charging strategy of Volkswagen is based, that about 50 percent of the charging of E-pass cars in the future, at the customer’s home, 20 per cent at work, 5 percent on the highway and not less than 25 per cent in the public space. Volkswagen equips the home and workplace charging facilities through its recently established daughter Elli and works under the umbrella of IONITY on building a fast charging network of European motorways.
In Berlin are to be provided until February 2020 in three phases up to 70 charging stations. This is mainly to fast charge with 50 kW of power, at each of which two vehicles – at a speed and on a normall load point – at the same time power the can download. The 140 charging points are available during the day during the opening Hours of the Lidl and country stores to purchase the supermarket customers. Between 23:00 and 6:30 p. m. the WeShare-vehicle fleet of exclusive-use rights.
Volkswagen WeShare is currently in the final testing phase and will be going end of this month, officially as a purely electric car-sharing offer in the market. Initially, the fleet of 1,500 e-Golf vehicles are. At the beginning of 2020 500 e-up!this.
By the middle of next year, the introduction of the ID follow the market.3, the first vehicles of the first fully-electric Volkswagen model to the new MEB-platform. WeShare starts in Berlin. The Roll-Out in other German cities as well as abroad, is in the planning stage.
Volkswagen and the Black group’s strategic E-partners (photo: Volkswagen AG)
