Electromobility
The e-car charging network is growing rapidly
Even though sales of electric cars have been weak recently, the public infrastructure for them continues to grow. How quickly depends on how you look at it.
There are more and more public charging options for electric cars. The Federal Network Agency now counts well over 140,000 charging points. This means that fewer electric vehicles now have to share a charging space than a year ago, as the Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) has calculated. And unlike vehicle sales, the momentum in network expansion is likely to continue.
How many charging points are there?
The latest data from the Federal Network Agency as of September 1st shows 145,857 charging points. 31,063 of these are fast charging points with an output of at least 22 kilowatts. However, the actual number is probably significantly higher, as only facilities are displayed where the operator has completed the registration process and agreed to the publication, as the Federal Network Agency writes. Experience has shown that there will probably be numerous late registrations.
How big is the growth?
That’s not an easy question to answer, because the Federal Network Agency repeatedly corrects the comparative values from previous years significantly upwards because there are late reports from charging stations. If you now take a current value that contains no or few late registrations and compare it with the previous year’s level, which contains many late registrations, this distorts the result. To prevent this, the VDA uses the figures reported a year ago as comparison values for its calculations. Both values are missing late reports, which makes the comparison fairer. In this way, the association calculates an increase of a good 45,000 charging points from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024. That would be faster than last time. However, the number is only an approximation. If only the currently reported figures were used for both points in time, there would be significantly slower growth of around 33,500 charging points within a year – which, however, would probably be significantly underestimated.
How is the charging network developing in comparison to the existing e-car population?
The Federal Motor Transport Authority reported 2.48 million purely battery-operated electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the middle of the year. This means that there are an average of 17.3 electric vehicles per publicly accessible charging point. This is significantly better than a year ago, when there were around 21 electric cars according to the VDA calculation method. In addition to the rather rapid growth of the charging network, the fact that the number of electric vehicles has recently grown significantly more slowly also contributed to this.
Where is the network densest?
That depends on how you define dense. Of course, the most charging stations per square kilometer are in cities. But the demand is correspondingly higher here because there are more electric cars.
An alternative is to compare the number of electric cars with that of charging points. The best care of all federal states in Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia can be found here. According to the VDA, there are 11.8, 11.9 and 12.0 electric cars per charging point. However, the countries also owe their good performance in this category to the fact that they are among the bottom performers in Germany when it comes to the proportion of electric cars. The worst rates can be found in Saarland with 24.3 electric vehicles per charging point and Rhineland-Palatinate with 21.7.
The ranking looks somewhat different if you compare not the electric car population, but the vehicle population in general with the number of charging points. So ask how well the country is prepared for a ramp-up of electromobility. Then Berlin, Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg are ahead – also because they are no longer penalized in this calculation for their above-average share of electric cars. Saarland remains at the bottom – but then behind Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate.
And where is it most efficient?
The charging network is not equally efficient everywhere. According to the Federal Network Agency, the highest charging capacity is found in Bavaria as of July 1, 2024, which is the only federal state to exceed the one gigawatt mark. This is followed by North Rhine-Westphalia with 938 megawatts and Baden-Württemberg with 775 megawatts. However, the countries are also the three most populous and have the most charging points. If you look at the average strength of the installed charging points, Thuringia is ahead with an average of 50.2 kilowatts. This is followed by Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate with values of just over 49 kilowatts. Berlin and Bremen have the weakest charging points on average with 24 and 26 kilowatts.
So what is the status of the charging infrastructure?
Again, it depends: There should actually be 15 million electric cars on German roads by 2030. This number would be far too large for the current network. However, there are considerable doubts that the value will be achieved and the network continues to grow. There are also different ways of looking at the current situation. The Federal Association of the Energy and Water Industry recently complained that the occupancy of the charging stations was too low for the operators. At that time, the association cited an average value of 14.6 percent of charging stations occupied at the same time.
The VDA continues to see a great need for action in expanding the charging infrastructure and, among other things, criticizes large regional differences. In addition, in a good third of the communities there is not a single public charging point and only one in four communities has at least one fast charging point. A good charging infrastructure is an essential key factor in getting people to switch to e-mobility, says VDA President Hildegard Müller. The expansion must therefore take place in advance and be pushed politically.
dpa
Source: Stern
