Half of the charging points for electric cars in the European Union are concentrated in two countries, the Netherlands, with some 90,000 chargers, and Germany with some 60,000, according to a study by the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA).
These two countries represent less than 10% of the entire area of the European Union, which means that the other half of the chargers are spread over the remaining 25 countries, which cover 90% of the area of the region.
From the association, they have pointed out that the difference between the countries that lead the classification and those that close it is “enormous”.
The Netherlands has almost 1,600 times more charging points than the country with the least infrastructure, Cyprus, with only 57 charging points. In fact, the Netherlands alone has as many chargers as 23 Member States put together.
They have also highlighted that in terms of the distribution of infrastructure, there is a clear division between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, on the one hand, and those of Western Europe, on the other. Thus, Romania, six times larger than the Netherlands, only has 0.4% of all charging points in the EU.
Spain, for its part, covers 12.3% of the EU territory and yet only has 3.4% of the total recharging points in the European community.
In the same way, although the number of recharging points has increased in the last five years (+180%), the total number (307,000) is “far below what is necessary”.
Specifically, according to ACEA, up to 6.8 million public charging points would be needed by 2030 in order to achieve the proposed 55% reduction in CO2 emissions from automobiles, which means a growth of more than 22 times in less than ten years.
“The stark disparities demonstrate the need for robust and harmonized Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) targets across all EU Member States. We urge policy makers to strengthen the AFIR so that it can achieve the goal of building a dense European network of charging stations, stretching from north to south and from east to west,” said ACEA Director General Eric-Mark Huitema.
