Electric vehicles are the next frontier with multiple companies dedicating research funds to finding better batteries for cars. However, we still have a long way to go when it comes to establishing supporting infrastructure for electric vehicles. As we still don’t have enough charging points in many countries. However, as per a new report, in the EU, the Netherlands leads the electric vehicle revolution by providing the highest number of electric vehicle charging points (ECV points).
Netherlands is electrifying!
Going by the ACEA 2019 progress report on alternatively-powered cars in the EU, Netherlands leads the way with 25.8 percent of electric vehicle charging points in the region. This means that the Netherlands hosts 37,037 ECV (electrically-chargeable vehicles) points and is followed by Germany with 19.1 percent share or 27,459 charging points for ECV. Additionally, France and the United Kingdom have 17.3 and 13.3 percent of ECV charging points with the exact numbers being 24,850 for France and 19,076 for the UK.
Regions requiring Improvement
While the top five European countries mentioned above are doing well in terms of infrastructure for electric vehicles, there are five regions that need substantial improvement. Cyprus, for example, has merely 36 ECV charging stations and Greece has 50. Malta, Bulgaria and Romania with 100, 108 and 125 ECV points respectively also make the list of top five countries with least ECV points. However, this doesn’t mean that the overall rollout for charging points for ECVs has slowed down.
Going by the ACEA report, the rollout of charging stations for ECVs has steadily increased over time. There were 34,448 total charging points across the EU in 2014 and the number went up to 59,200 in 2015, 119,615 in 2016, 126,503 in 2017 and a notable 143,589 in 2018. Overall, it was a 316.8 percent increase in installation of ECV charging points in the EU between 2014 and 2018.
Need for more charging points across the EU
The Netherlands is leading the way when it comes to providing infrastructure for EVs and we have observed good deployment of ECV infrastructure. However, the total number of charging points across the EU falls quite short of the required amount. Considering the adoption of electric and hybrid electric vehicles, the European Commission estimates at least 2.8 million charging points need to be installed across the EU by 2030, which is around 20 times the number right now, in a span of 20 years.
