VW and ElectrAssure electrify imports in the UK

Posted 19th August 2020

Volkswagen AG (VW), as part of its TOGETHER 2025+ Strategy, declared intent to electrify its entire model range, with at least 1 electrified model in each of the Group’s 300 or so model range across all VW AG Brands by 2030. As the largest automotive group in the world that is some commitment.

VW AG will introduce 50 purely electric and 30 hydrid models by 2025, meaning that almost 1 in 4 VW AG vehicles sold will be an alternatively fuelled vehicle (AFV).  For the UK this will mean that well over 100,000 VWG Brand vehicles a year will be sold with an AFV drive train by 2030. The high paced market offerings of AFV vehicles will need to be supported by an appropriate charging infrastructure in the VWG UK supply chain to support the offer to VWG customers and the VWG Retail Network.

The charging infrastructure to be provided was based on the annual number of vehicles expected at VW port sites and it’s Pre Delivery Inspection centre (PDI) over the next five years. For 2020 that figure stood at just over 15,000 vehicles rising to over 79,000 in 2023. This meant that VW needed an EV charging solution that was not just resilient and reliable for the ‘here and now’ requirements but also future-proofed for the dramatic increase in expected numbers of vehicles.

ElectrAssure won that tender exercise. 

A tender process was commenced in late 2019 and bidders were asked to provide 7KW charging at 3 port locations on the U.K.’s east coast and 50KW rapid charging at their PDI centre in Kent.

Upon carrying out the required site surveys we realised that one port site and their PDI centre had limited power capacity which meant that load management was required. With the PDI centre this was a much greater task as a solution didn’t exist to provide load management between numerous rapid chargers.

As part of ElectrAssure’s bid, we worked with our back office partner Hanger 19. As well as providing the back office and monitoring for the project they also built a unique ‘Dynamic Demand Controller’ (DDC) which managed the charging output of all chargers to provide a robust, bespoke charging solution that worked within the available capacity of the electrical system at all times.

This solution alongside Alfen’s ‘Smart Charging Network’ and ‘Active Load Balancing’ capabilities for the 7KW charging requirements and ElectrAssure’s reputation for the highest installation standards and customer service culminated in our bid being successful and the project commenced in early 2020.

VWGUK are now more than pepared to provide EV charging for the new models coming to the UK, over the next 5 years.