Shell Pilipinas Corporation is setting additional Investments in electric vehicle (EV) chargers to help boost the country’s drive to transition into electric mobility (e-mobility). According to Shell Vice President for Mobility Randolph T. Del Valle, the company is planning to “have eight  more additional charge points so that will be around 20 in total by the end of the year.” He qualified that as of last year, the company deployed at least eight (8) charge points at its Shell Recharge EV outlets; and as of the first quarter of 2023, “we are already having 12 charge points in three (3) locations.” Charge point would refer to the number of charger-connected points that can be made available to customers when they will need to charge their EVs at the same time. In the ongoing pilot study that Shell is pursuing with the Department of Energy (DOE), Del Valle noted that one focal point they are reassessing would be the scale of efficiency that their EV charging solutions would be able to yield as benefit to consumers. “We are actually re-studying in terms of what are really the efficiency gains on EVs because we will be powering our Shell Recharge EV solutions via Shell Energy - which comes from cleaner energy solutions, whether from RE or other cleaner sources - so we’re looking at what would really be the end-to-end solution coming from low carbon target that we are envisioning here in the country,” he expounded. On the planned scale of investment on this business space for Shell, he indicated that “we will continue to have a demand-based and partnership-based approach for growing that network. EV investments will be targeted, focusing on more locations and efficiency rather than mass for the next three (3) years.” Del Valle similarly stated that their rollout of EV chargers would be primarily anchored on the deployment of combined charging system or CCS2 technology which is currently held as the international standard; as well as type-2 EV charger which is ideal even for plug-in hybrid vehicles. “For the EVs, there is actually an international standard in the chargers – and one that is internationally approved is CCS2 charger – and that is normally used for fast chargers,” he said. He further explained “this CCS standard is something that all European cars are actually using; but they are also being used right now on the new models that are being developed here in Asia because that is the international standard.” The global major car manufacturers widely known to be using the CCS2 charging technology include BMW, Volkswagen and Ford. “We practically cater to a number of types of chargers depending on the cars – whether a full EV that can use fast charger; or whether you have a hybrid EV that uses type 2 – and we have a very slow charger for motorbikes as well – so we do cater to various types of chargers,” he stressed. Type-2 EV chargers are also known as AC chargers; and these are classified either as tethered chargers or those that have a built-in cable that can be plugged directly into the vehicle’s charging point; or the untethered chargers that require the users to provide their own cables.