The four car manufacturers Daimler, BMW, Ford and VW (including their subsidiaries Porsche and Audi) announced their joint venture plans for a high-performance charging network in Europe a year ago. Now the project is being put into practice: the first 20 fast-charging stations are to be installed this year, as the car manufacturers announced on November 3, 2017. The stations will be realized in cooperation with the service station operator Tank & Rast, the Austrian oil company OMV and the Circle K retail chain. This will take place under the newly chosen name 'Ionity'. It replaces the previous name of the joint venture - 'European High Power Charging Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH'. The four car manufacturers want to build a total of 400 fast-charging stations under the umbrella of 'Ionity' by 2020. They are to be built on freeways and main traffic routes in Germany, Norway and Austria. The car manufacturers have not yet provided any information on the price level at which they intend to invest.

The company founded specifically for the network development, in which the four groups each hold a quarter share, is based in Munich. Initially, 50 employees will work there. Michael Hajesch (CEO) and Marcus Groll (COO) are the managing directors.

The plan is for the fast-charging stations to be located around 120 km from each other and to provide several charging points. "The availability of a nationwide high-power charging (HPC) network is essential for the market penetration of electromobility," emphasizes Ionity CEO Hajesch. "By creating the first pan-European HPC network, we are making electric mobility suitable for long journeys." The aim of the joint venture is to enable fast, convenient and digitally affordable charging of electric vehicles. The HPC network will use the European charging standard Combinded Charging System (CCS). The charging capacity of up to 350 kW per charging point enables appropriately designed vehicles to charge in a significantly shorter time compared to systems available today. The openness of the system and its Europe-wide distribution should help to significantly increase the acceptance of electric vehicles.