Daimler and Volkswagen Group hope a network of high-power charging stations they are rolling out with Ford Motor will set an industry standard for plugs and protocols and will give them an edge over electric-car rivals.
At the moment, Tesla and automakers in Japan and Germany use different plugs and communication protocols to link batteries to chargers, but companies building the charging networks needed for EVs to become mainstream say the number of plug formats will need to be limited to keep costs down.
To try to build critical mass for the Combined Charging System (CCS) favored by Europe, BMW, Daimler, Ford and VW, said in November 2017 they would develop 400 high-power charging stations on main roads in 18 European countries by 2020.
