Europe lags behind on fast chargers of electric vehicles

In Europe, the network of fast chargers should be developed rapidly, since the picture so far has not been particularly encouraging.

Of the approximately 225,000 public chargers currently in the European Union, only 25,000 are suitable for fast charging. That is, only one in nine European charging points has a fast charger with a capacity of more than 22 kW. The remaining charging points have fast chargers with a capacity equal to or less than 22 kW.

In Greece, for e.g., which according to the official data available to the Association of European Manufacturers (ACEA) – of the 252 public charging stations that were recorded in 2020 only 22 are over 22KWh.

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Of course, in some places on the national road network, larger fast chargers have been installed, so that the owners of the electric vehicles can recover the lost electricity within a short period of time. Charging speed is important for the driver who is traveling, as he does not want to waste valuable time waiting for the battery to charge.

“To convince more citizens to go electric, we need to remove all the hassle associated with charging,” says ACEA’s director-general, Eric-Mark Huitema, adding: “People have to meet a lot of chargers in their everyday environment and these charging points need to be quick and easy to use to decide their transition to electrification, but also not to see long queues.” Thus, in a letter, ACEA urges the European Parliament to significantly strengthen the European Commission’s proposal in order to ensure that Europe can create a dense network of charging and refueling infrastructure in each EU Member State by 2030.

Germany, for example, of the 37,213 chargers it had in 2020, only 7,325 are fast. In the Netherlands out of the 1008 fast are the 283, in Iceland out of the 736 fast are the 254, in Italy out of the 11,842 fast are the 1,231, in Poland out of the 1,039 fast are the 652, in Portugal out of the 1,976 fast are the 494, in Spain out of the 5,279 fast are the 2,128 and in Sweden out of the 8,804 fast are the 1,566.

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What should be pointed out is that while initially the companies in Greece that placed fast chargers had a high charge on the kilowatt-hour, which in many cases reached 0.50 euros per KWh, the competition managed to reduce its price reaching up to the amount of 0.30 to 0.35 euros.

These prices are expected to fall further in the coming period, when there will be more competition or when municipalities and regions that may be charging at cost prices or in some cases free of charge enter more strongly into electrification.

source: APE-MPE

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