Electra enters Netherlands

France's fast charging-focused EV public charging firm Electra has launched operations in the Netherlands, according to its co-founder and CEO Aurelien de Mieux.

"Happy to launch Electra in Holland with the ambition to create a major operator helping Dutch people charge their cars," he says.

And he is banking on fast charging to help give his firm a USP in its new market. "In a country where AC, or slow charge, is king, we will offer fast charging to help mass adoption of electric cars," he says.

William Roberts, automotive research lead at consultancy Rho Motion, told EV inFocus in a March white paper that the Netherlands has indeed "got the best EV to charger ratio in the world — albeit a lot higher percentage on the slow charging side than in many other nations".

But it is also home, and largest national market, to Fastned, an EV pure play that also stresses its fast-charging focus. That said, Fastned concentrates solely on highway charging, while Electra's model includes highways, but also urban fast charging stations in supermarket, restaurant, hotel and public parking spaces, as well as its first charging station at an airport.

Pan-European

Electra currently operates in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, across which it had 170+ charging stations by the end of last year, and boasts nearly 1,000 charging points. It aims to reach 15,0000 fast charging points across 2,200 stations by 2030.

In January, Electra raised another €304mn ($326mn) in fundraising — what it says was the largest in France and second largest in Europe in the charging sector — led by a new investor, PGGM, a Dutch pension fund service provider. French climate bank Bpifrance also entered into Electra in the round, while historical French investors including private equity house Eurazeo, investment firms Rive Private Investment and Serena, and the investment arm of infrastructure group SNCF continued to participate.