Key Currency Exchange Rates for Friday, 12/01/17

National Average Price for Regular Unleaded Current: $3.918; Month Ago: $4.495; Year Ago: $3.177. National Average Price for Diesel Current: $4.990; Month Ago: $5.515; Year Ago: $3.289.

Electric mobility is gaining ground worldwide, and its importance will continue to grow at a fast pace in the coming years. One of the biggest challenges in this is the rapid expansion of the charging infrastructure: today in Germany, for example, there are just 25,000 public charging points (source: statista.de, May 2017). However, around five times as many would be needed for the planned number of one million electric cars by the year 2020. It is therefore clear that there is a huge need for an extensive network of publicly available and private charging stations with the appropriate charging capacity. “We’re confident that we’re at a turning point when it comes to electric mobility,” says Rainer Hundsdörfer, CEO of Heidelberg. “Electric cars are becoming a real option for more and more drivers. We want to take advantage of this trend, and put our expertise to work to benefit from this growth market.” Click Read More below for additional detail.

Oil prices stabilized on Monday after one of the most bearish weeks in months, propped up by OPEC comments signaling the group and other producers may take further action to restore market balance in the long term. Oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico started returning to service after Hurricane Nate had forced the shutdown of more than 90 percent of crude output in the area. The prospective restarts kept price gains in check. “Oil is having trouble to find direction. Mixed signals keep investors busy changing their minds,” said Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist at ABN Amro. Click Read More below for more of the story.