Shell plans to double electric car charging points in the UK by 2050

The Shell logo reflected in the side mirror of a car in London in January 2015. /Reuters/ Toby Melville

Royal Dutch Shell will install 50,000 new electric car charging points in the UK by 2050, doubling the country's current 25,000 spots.

The company unveiled its plan on Wednesday to use Ubitricity, a company that installs electric car charging points in Europe, for the new points in the UK.

It had already installed 3,600 in the UK before Shell bought it earlier this year.

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"The move is part of a wider effort to bring more electric vehicle charging availability to the millions of UK drivers without private parking and help local authorities get their charging networks up and running as quickly as possible," Shell said.

The plan is part of the UK's efforts to ban the sale of new diesel cars by 2030. But to do this, it would need between 280,000 and 480,000 charging points by 2030.

Ubitricity will add the points to existing lampposts that residents can use to charge their cars during working hours and overnight.

While the UK government will pay 75 percent of the cost of installing these points, local councils will have to cover the remaining 25 percent, though Shell has offered to help finance this bill.

It could cost between $3,000 and $5,000 to install each charging point, according to Bernstein analysts.

The company will make money from both installing, maintaining and powering the points.

Shell is trying to become more environmentally friendly after a Dutch court ordered it to cut 45 percent of its emissions by 2030.

One of the ways it is trying to achieve this is by increasing its total number of charging points from just 60,000 today to 500,000 by 2025.

Source(s): Reuters ,AFP