PARIS (Reuters) – Portuguese electric vehicle (EV) charging operator Power Dot has raised 150 million euros ($158.01 million) with private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners to triple its network of charging points in France, the two firms said on Wednesday.
Present in several European countries, Power Dot currently has 2,500 charging points in France available in shop and hotel car parks and plans to grow its network to more than 7,000 points by 2025.
Antin’s contribution gives it joint control of Power Dot, owned by Grupo Arie and Power Dot executives.
The deployment of EV charging stations in some European countries still faces hurdles, hampering European Union’s efforts to speed up growth of EV market as it seeks to clamp down on air pollution.
In France, Power Dot adds that to date only 60,040 out of 100,000 charging points planned by end-2021 have been deployed, with only 8% of these providing fast charging.
(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume, writing by Dagmarah Mackos,; Editing by Louise Heavens)