Galp has made another tentative step to increase its service station network’s provision of electrical ‘fast charging’ points, claiming that drivers of electrical and hybrid vehicles can get from Lisbon to the Algarve using only their battery power.
In collaboration with BMW, Nissan, Renault and Volkswagen, with the technological support of Efacec, there now is a corridor of fast charging points - ‘fast’ in this case meaning 30 minutes.
The monopoly held by Mobi.e ended in 2010 with service stations free to install the necessary equipment to charge electric vehicles yet in the Algarve there are only around a dozen such points for drivers to use.
Galp now has electrical charging points at its service stations in Palmela, Aljustrel, Alcacer and on the Via do Infante motorway near Loulé, “making it possible to travel in electric vehicles between Lisbon and the Algarve” according to Galp’s statement.
"The significant increase in sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in 2015, tripling the number in the previous year, led to an increase in the use of the Mobi.e network," explains Galp which supplies 10% of this electrical energy market.
The company believes that this market momentum will translate into new business initiatives, both in terms of launches of new car models and the extension of the electricity grid infrastructure, resulting in increased savings and benefits to customers - and turnover for Galp.
Galp has an early history in this market as it provided the first electrical top-up point, in Oerias between Cascais and Lisbon in 2010, a European first.
