France’s Bolloré Group has won government approval to deploy a network of 16,000 charging points across France, benefiting from a new law that cuts costs for EV initiatives. Bolloré will invest an estimated sum of 150 million euros in the project, which is expected to be completed by 2019.
The network will cover all of France's 22 regions and 94 of its 101 administrative départements. As such, the French government has deemed the project to be on a "national scale," allowing Bolloré to be exonerated of the usual fees relating to the use of public land. This exemption is part of a law passed at the end of 2014 that aims to encourage EV adoption in France.
Bolloré is already a prominent player in the French EV market and has installed about 6,000 stations, mainly in Bordeaux, Lyon and Paris, where the carsharing scheme Autolib' uses all-electric Bolloré Bluecars. With this latest initiative, the company aims to ensure EV and hybrid owners are never more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from a charging point in France.
In order to keep the electrical network stable and extend the battery life of vehicles, the charging points will be "semi-fast" (7.4 kW), and the majority will comply with European standards, allowing them to be used on longer journeys between countries.