EU | Overview of regional distribution of charging stations
According to the EU's "European Green Deal" and "Fit for 55" legislative plan, a long-term goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and a mid-term goal of reducing passenger car carbon dioxide emissions by 55% by 2030 are set.
According to the EU's "European Green Deal" and "Fit for 55" legislative plan, a long-term goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and a mid-term goal of reducing passenger car carbon dioxide emissions by 55% by 2030 are set. According to the EU's carbon emission regulations, all newly sold vehicles must achieve 100% zero emissions by 2035. According to PwC's relevant forecasts, the total annual car sales in the EU will remain at 15-17 million in the next few years. To achieve these goals, the sales of electric vehicles (EVs), including pure electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), must increase significantly, and the availability of charging infrastructure is crucial for the promotion of electric vehicles.
（*Data as of 2023）
During the period from 2017 to 2023, the sales of electric vehicles increased 18 times, while the number of public charging stations only increased 6 times, which is seriously insufficient compared with the growing demand for electric vehicles.
By the end of 2023, the EU had 632,423 public charging stations. By the end of 2023, there will be about 3 million pure electric vehicles on EU roads, that is, about 5 pure electric vehicles for each charging station. Although 153,027 public charging stations were added in 2023, this is far less than the number that needs to be installed each year in the future. ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association) believes that considering the actual growth rate of electric vehicles, the EU needs 8.8 million charging stations by 2030, which is much higher than the European Commission's estimate. This requires 1.2 million new charging stations per year, or 22,438 new charging stations per week. If the charging station installation rate in 2023 is followed, the EU will only reach 1.6 million charging stations by 2030, which will result in a gap of 1.9 million charging stations, which is far from meeting future needs.
And the distribution of charging stations in the EU is extremely uneven. The Netherlands, France and Germany account for 61% of the total charging stations in the EU, while these three countries only account for 22% of the EU's area. In contrast, the other 24 member states covering 80% of the EU's land area only have 39% of the charging stations. The most extreme example is the Netherlands, which has more than 140,000 charging stations, while Romania, which is much larger than the Netherlands, has only 2,754 charging stations.
In Europe, public charging stations are usually equipped with two types of charging interfaces: Type 2 is the mainstream interface, and most of the remaining market share is the combined charging system (CCS). The Type 2 interface has a universal socket and can provide up to 22 kW of power, suitable for slow charging and fast charging. The CCS interface combines AC and DC ports to provide fast or ultra-fast charging with a maximum output power of up to 350 kW.
AC charging stations (alternating current charging) are usually used for slow charging and have lower power, generally between 7.4kW and 22kW.
DC charging stations (direct current charging) are usually used for fast charging or ultra-fast charging and have higher power, generally between 22kW and 350kW.
However, of the 632,423 charging stations in the EU, only about one in seven (13.5%) have fast charging capabilities (power over 22 kW). Most charging stations are "normal" chargers with a power of 22 kW or less.