A unit of oil giant Shell is buying EV charging firm Volta in an all-cash deal.
Estimated to be worth about $169 million, the deal is expected to close in the first half of this year.
Volta operates 3,050 EV chargers in the U.S. and Europe and has another 3,400 in the pipeline. It becomes the second EV charging company to be taken over by Shell, following the purchase of Greenlots by Royal Dutch Shell in 2019.
Last year, Volta ranked second after Tesla in customer satisfaction for Level 2 chargers.
According to one report, Shell’s purchase marks one of very few EV charging networks in the U.S. that are now owned by an oil and gas company. EVgo, another charging network, was once a subsidiary of oil and gas company NRG Energy but was purchased by electric and natural gas company LS Power in 2020. Electrify America is owned by Volkswagen, which is predominantly a gas and diesel vehicle company, though it has vowed to shift to an EV-only lineup within the next decade.
The announcement follows other investments in the EV charging infrastructure space, including Mercedes-Benz’s announcement that it will invest billions of euros to build 10,000 fast-charging points in North America, Europe and China by 2030.
