√Australian electric-car charger start-up wins global order from petrol giant

The biggest order yet for a Brisbane-based electric-car charging firm comes as oil giant Shell buys the Volta charging network in the US.

Petroleum company BP has placed a major global order for more than 1000 fast-chargers with Queensland-based start-up Tritium as oil giants continue their drive into electric vehicle energy.

It comes as Shell confirms its $US169 million purchase of Volta, which operates a charging network with 3000 sites in the US and a small number in Europe, as reported by Automotive News.

The deal with BP Pulse – the company’s electrification brand – is for chargers to be used in Australia, the US, the UK and Europe and will lead to a massive expansion of Tritium’s production capacity at its US factory in the state of Tennessee.

Tritium said the BP deal is the biggest order in the company’s history and will help to lift its total revenue for 2023 to around $US200 million as it boosts production to 11,000 chargers this year.

BP and Shell have both begun the installation of electric vehicle chargers in Australia, but only in relatively small numbers at their existing service stations.

While there is a mix of electric-car chargers used by Shell overseas, in Australia both Shell and BP use Tritium chargers.

BP Pulse announced in April, 2022 it had placed an order for 1000 chargers to be used in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

The new global BP deal is understood to have added 1000 chargers to the company’s order.

Tritium said it intends to manufacture the chargers for Australia site at its factory in Brisbane, which has an annual production capacity of 5000 of the devices.

The chargers for the US, UK and Europe will be manufactured at a Tritium factory in Lebananon, Tennessee, which opened in August 2022 and will eventually have a capacity of 30,000 units a year.

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