A consortium led by E.ON has received €45 million in European Union (EU) funding to expand charging infrastructure for electric cars and commercial vehicles in Europe.
The DRIVE-E project is one of 39 innovative projects selected by the EU to develop alternative fuel infrastructure.
It will create a total of 1,400 new public charging points by the end of 2027. This includes 430 charging points for heavy commercial vehicles, each with a capacity of 350 kW or more.
The project will be implemented in 13 EU countries and will “make a significant contribution to the electrification of European freight and passenger transport”, it said.
The DRIVE-E project partners are E.ON, ZSE and Eldrive. Together, the firms aim to build a network of charging points for cars and light and heavy commercial vehicles along main trans-European freight transport routes.
The network will include sites specifically designed for truck charging as well as mixed environments for trucks and cars. Another focus of the project is to complement and extend the existing network for light commercial vehicles in areas where there are gaps in the network, it said.
The planned charging points will be located at more than 250 sites in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia.
The project is co-funded by the European Union under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) II. AFIF is a key driver of the EU’s ambitious push to expand charging infrastructure across its trans-European transport network, thus making freight and passenger transport in Europe more efficient and sustainable.
The second phase of the AFIF (2024-2025) was launched in February 2024 with a total budget of €1 billion.
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