LONDON -- Volkswagen and Britain's biggest retailer, Tesco, have teamed up to develop an electric vehicle charging network in the UK.
Under the partnership, VW and Tesco will roll out over 2,400 electric vehicle charging bays across 600 Tesco stores in the next three years.
Electric cars and other vehicles using alternative fuels account for about 6 percent of sales in Britain and are the fastest growing part of the market, rising 22 percent so far this year, helped by government schemes supporting them.
The charging bays will be installed by Pod Point, which has installed over 2,500 publicly available charge bays at locations including retailers, service stations and transport hubs.
Pod Point said the deal would lead to a 14 percent increase in the number of public charge bays in Britain.
Customers will be able to charge electric cars using a normal 7kW charger for free or a rapid 50 kW charger for a cost in line with the market rate.
VW plans to sell one million electric cars a year worldwide by 2025. VW sold 10.7 million vehicles globally last year.
VW already sells full-electric versions of its Golf and Up cars. Next year it will start the roll out of its new I.D. family of all-electric models with the I.D. hatchback, a Golf-sized model that will be followed in 2020 by production versions of the I.D. Buzz minivan and ID. Crozz concept cars.
Bloomberg contributed to this report
