(Reuters) – BP’s electric charging unit is keen on buying Tesla’s Supercharging sites in the United States, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
BP “is aggressively looking to acquire real estate to scale our network, which is a heightened focus following the recent Tesla announcement,” the report quoted Sujay Sharma, CEO of BP Pulse Americas, as saying in an interview.
Tesla and BP did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The development comes days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk abruptly laid off employees who ran the electric vehicle charging business, but said the automaker still plans to expand the Supercharger network at a slower pace for new locations.
The move could present other public EV fast-charging networks such as EVgo and ChargePoint an opportunity to grow their market share.
BP had said in February last year that it planned to invest $1 billion in EV charging stations across the United States by 2030, and in October, placed an order for Tesla’s fast chargers worth $100 million.
The 250-kilowatt BP Pulse-branded chargers will be compatible with both Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), and Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors enabling the charging of EV models from other carmakers.
Automakers have been moving to adopt Tesla’s NACS, taking the company’s superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival CCS.
“If there are stranded real estate partners who are looking for someone to call, they should feel free to pick up the phone and call me or look me up on LinkedIn,” the report quoted Sharma as saying.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Shailesh Kuber)
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