The electric vehicle charging infrastructure at three Continental testing sites in Arvidsjaur in Sweden, Jeversen in Germany and Uvalde in the USA will undergo upgrades to align the company’s in-house tire development and testing capacities with electric transportation.
The charging infrastructure at the Contidrom proving ground in Jeversen, near Hanover, has already undergone expansion to meet the growing demand for testing EV tires, as testing programs often require several hours of constant driving on wet and dry handling courses. For this reason, it is crucial that EVs can be charged quickly to enable testing to be resumed.
Continental plans to have a new transformer station go online this year at the Contidrom. This transformer will be capable of supplying enough energy for eight additional twin rapid charging stations, which equates to a maximum available charging capacity of over 2,000kW per hour.
“We supply nine of the world’s 10 highest-volume manufacturers of electric vehicles with our tires as original equipment,” said Wolfgang Rötter, head of the Contidrom proving ground. “Electro-mobility is impossible without charging stations. We are continuously upgrading our charging capacities so that we can perform even more tests for electric vehicles. This applies as much to electric cars as it does to electric trucks and electric buses.”
The charging infrastructure at the Uvalde and Arvidsjaur facilities is also being upgraded to cater for the growing number of EV tire tests. The Arvidsjaur site now has eight charging stations – two of these are rapid charging stations that can supply 180kW of power each for fast charging. The number of charging stations available in Uvalde will be increased at a later date.
“Many of our customers are working intensely to advance the transformation toward electric transportation. The next 10 years will see them continue to shift the focus of their product portfolios toward battery-powered vehicles,” said Meletis Xigakis, responsible for global tire testing at Continental.
