It is hardly surprising that “Fit for 55 in 2030” will also impact automotive transport. The EU Parliament, for example, backs the proposal of zero emissions for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles by 2035. This would see intermediate emissions reduction targets for 2030 set at 55% for cars and 50% for light commercial vehicles. Ambitious targets that can only be achieved in conjunction with the other reduction measures included in the package – while focusing on electric mobility at the same time. However, not only does acceptance of electric mobility need to increase exponentially among business and private customers for this to succeed, rather the question of low-threshold charging options also needs to be answered. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (Association des Constructeurs Européens d'Automobiles, ACEA) recently took a look at the current charging infrastructure in Europe – and the result was unambiguous.²⁾
Unbalanced distribution
EU-wide analysis of different charging points reveals that about half of all charging points are concentrated in only two countries – the Netherlands (29.4%) and Germany (19.4%). By implication this means: 50% of all charging stations are distributed among the remaining 25 member states. In terms of surface area, therefore, this represents an extremely unbalanced distribution: half of all charging options are located in about 10% of the entire EU surface area, while the other half are in the remaining 90%.
Association des Constructeurs Européens d'Automobiles, ACEA
East/west disparity
Even more blatant is the difference revealed when the ranking is looked at more closely: the Netherlands leads the way with almost 1,600 times more charging points than the country with the least infrastructure (Cyprus, with just 57 charging points). It is even the case that the Netherlands has as many charging points as 23 member states together.... In addition, the analysis performed by the ACEA shows: in terms of the distribution of charging infrastructure within the EU, there is a clear split between western European countries on the one hand and central and eastern European countries on the other hand. For instance, a sizeable country like Romania – some six times larger than the Netherlands – only has 0.4% of all the EU’s charging points.
Strong increase in demand
It is not just in terms of the distribution of charging points in the EU countries that there is a lot of catching up to do – the total number is also lagging behind demand. This is although, according to the ACEA, there has been a strong increase in the number of charging points to more than 307,000 in the past five years. However, this falls far short of what is required. To meet the proposed interim target of a 55% CO₂ reduction by 2030, up to 6.5 million charging points would be required across the EU by this time. And with a much more balanced distribution than today. This means a more than 22-fold increase in just eight years. There is therefore a lot to be done still.
News on the topic
¹⁾Source: European Parliament, Reducing carbon emissions: EU targets and measures
²⁾Source: Association des Constructeurs Européens d'Automobiles, ACEA, Electric cars: Half of all chargers in EU concentrated in just two countries
Status: 28.09.2022
© Volkswagen AG