Centrica’s subsidiary British Gas has partnered with automotive giant Volkswagen to install home charging stations and provide aftersales services to aid a smooth electric vehicle (EV) transition.
The three year agreement will see the UK’s largest energy supplier provide home charging hardware for Volkswagen as it looks to rollout 80 electric and plug-in hybrid models.
British Gas will work with Volkswagen’s Elli subsidiary to deliver a package of installations, along with making preparatory electrical upgrades to facilitate the greater number of EVs. Volkswagen alone is predicting sales of up to 3 million all-electric cars a year by 2025.
In January, sales of battery electric vehicles exceeded the 100,000 mark in the UK, up 203.9% compared to 2019.
Sarwjit Sambhi, CEO of Centrica Consumer said that getting carbon out of transport was “critical” for net zero.
“We’re proud to play our part by helping enable the EV transition for Volkswagen, one of the world’s most forward thinking and ambitious automotive companies. Centrica is committed to a pathway for the energy transition in line with the Paris agreement through focusing on three things – helping our customers reduce their emissions, reducing the emissions of the energy system as a whole, and reducing our own.
“We made material progress on all of these during 2019 and are committed to a plan for delivering net zero by 2050.”
Major energy companies are increasingly looking to play a role in the growing EV market, in particular given the announcement that sales of new internal combustion engine cars will be now banned in the UK from 2035, five years earlier than previously.
Centrica recently announced that it had invested in cloud-based software platform Driivz during its C funding round after first partnering with the EV-focused company in 2018.
The supplier has also partnered Ford, providing EV charging installations and tariffs for new Ford EVs as part of a comprehensive charging solution.
The second biggest energy supplier in the UK OVO recently announced a partnership with Mini Electric, offering free miles owners of Mini’s first EV offering when they switch to OVO Energy’s EV Everywhere bundle.
In February, EDF announced that it had acquired EV charging company Pod Point, cementing its position in the UK EV space.
