Sign of the times as Shell buys its first electric car charging station firm in Europe…
Oil companies have begun to realise the future will not be nearly as reliant on fossil fuels, and Royal Dutch Shell is moving to safeguard its future business.
The Dutch oil company acquired NewMotion, an electric-car charging station firm, for an undisclosed price.
NewMotion, also based in the Netherlands, has more than 30,000 electric-car charging stations in Europe. The company specializes in converting normal parking spaces into charging points for electric cars.
Shell called the acquisition a “form of diversification” as the company acknowledges future fossil-fuel bans. North American oil producers haven’t acted as quickly as European-based producers like Shell and BP.
In the past year, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and France have all laid out plans to phase out the internal-combustion engine by no later than 2040.
The mere idea Shell employs a “vice president of new fuels” is further evidence of oil’s eventual decline.