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According to battery storage specialist ADS-TEC, ten e-vehicles will be able to simultaneously charge at the HPC loading truck up to 320 kW each in a few minutes.

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Widespread adoption of electric vehicles will only be achieved in Germany if there is sufficient charging infrastructure in place, giving consumers the confidence to transition away from gasoline. At present, there are only around 20,000 charging points in the country, but the Federal Government wants there to be a million by 2030 – a 50-fold increase. As a result, we have seen the commercial roll-out of a number of rapid-charging solutions in recent months.

The latest is an ultrafast-charging solution in the form of a truck trailer called the Mobile High Power Charger (HPC) from the battery storage specialist ADS-TEC. The Germany-based company claims that ten e-vehicles will be able to simultaneously charge at the HPC loading truck up to 320 kW each in a few minutes, making it the “world's most powerful mobile fast-charging solution”. Each HPC has a total capacity of 2 MW per hour and an output of 3.2 MW when operating at full capacity, equivalent to average power output of around 3,200 single-family homes.

The first quick-loading trailer was piloted in late 2019 on a racetrack in Barcelona. They are now in use at various public events throughout Europe.

It is hoped the HPC fleet – which offers rapid-charging for a limited period with location flexibility – could bridge the gaps where fixed infrastructure charging points, which are grid-dependent, are in short supply, unavailable or maxed-out.

In other news, last month Shell announced it was doubling the number of fast-charging HPC columns in northern Germany (adding a further 50 to the 50 it launched with the energy supplier EnBW). While this year Deutsche Telekom will complete the conversion of 12,000 of its broadband street cabinets into charging stations – 500 of which will be quick loading at speeds of 150 kW.