Currently, there is one charging station for every six NEVs. (Photo : Reuters)
Car manufacturer BMW has tied up with Volkswagen in order to address the biggest problem in the electric vehicle market: the lack of car charging stations in major roads. The plan is that they will install 100 charging stations the busiest roads on the East and West Coasts,
One cited example was the Interstate 95 which serves metropolitan areas between Florida and New England and one of the major highways in the United States. BMW and Volkswagen has already tapped the services of ChargePoint in order to help them build a network of charging point around the US, according to the New York Times.
BMW and Volkswagen's move to create their own network of charging station is for them to compete with Tesla Motors which currently has its own network of high speed charging station in the Northeastern part of the US and in California.
Tesla's Model S cars used the company's very own Supercharger network in order to recharge their cars and its service is for free. The Supercharger network has more than 2,000 charging ports distributed in more than 350 charging stations spanning all over the world, Christian Science Monitor reported.
However, some analysts are still skeptical whether the plan to create 100 new charging stations will help increase the popularity of electric cars.
TrueCar senior analyst Eric Lyman said, "There are more than 100 gas stations in Santa Monica, It's going to be extremely difficult to reach the level of convenience of gasoline, which is a system that's developed over a century to put stations on nearly every commercial corner."
In 2014 about 120,000 units were sold in the US which represents an overall sales increase of about 20 percent compared to 2013 sales figures, despite this remarkable figures the electric car industry is still a mere fraction compared to 16.5 million vehicles sold altogether.
