Catalan firm Wallbox to help Uber's fleet of vehicles go electric in Europe

The Catalan company Wallbox has signed a deal with Uber to help the ridesharing app transition towards having a fully electric fleet.

The electric vehicle charger maker will offer discounts for European Uber drivers to buy domestic chargers and for getting them installed. Uber aims to become a no-emissions company by 2030 in Europe, and by 2040 globally. 

The ride-hailing firm believe that half of its lifts given by 2025 will be made with electric cars in seven European capitals: Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, London, Madrid, and Paris. 

At the moment, only 6.2% of Uber journeys in Europe use 100% electric vehicles, and both companies think that one of the major obstacles drivers face is the lack of domestic or on-street chargers.

"We want the transition to electric vehicles to be as easy and simple as possible for drivers and believe that our products offer that to all Uber drivers in Europe," Masud Rabbani, Chief Business Officer at Wallbox, said in a statement.

"Our drivers constantly tell us that their difficulty accessing charging points is an important concern for them," Chris Hook, Global Sustainability Strategy Lead at Uber, added.

Wallbox, one of the few Catalan 'unicorns'

Wallbox, a Catalan Company that was founded in Barcelona in 2015, has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since October 2021. 

It has been valued at over a billion euros since 2021, meaning that the leading energy management sector firm is one of Catalonia's few start-ups to have achieved 'unicorn' status.

In April this year, it opened its new factory in the Zona Franca area of Barcelona, and last week it inaugurated its first plant in the US. 

The project, launched in Arlington, Texas, cost €70 million and will have the capacity to build 250,000 electric chargers for vehicles by the end of 2022, and one million by 2030.

Wallbox has now two factories in the Barcelona area, one in China and one in the States. 

Charging an electric car in five minutes

The firm also showed a demo of one of their projects during the inauguration: Hypernova, a charger that can provide vehicles with a range of 160km in five minutes.

"This allows you to fully charge an electric vehicle in the time it takes to make a rest stop," said Enric Asunción, Wallbox’s CEO, in September 2021.