The French Minister, Amélie de Montchalin, summarized the problem well when she arrived in Luxembourg on Thursday at the meeting of European transport ministers: “We cannot ask Europeans to change to an electric vehicle if they do not have not the certainty of being able to recharge, with a good distribution of terminals”.
After months of intense discussions within the framework of the “Fit for 55” climate package the 27 reached an agreement at the end of this council on a future regulation setting binding objectives for the Member States to finally deploy a network of public terminals commensurate with the ongoing electrification of the vehicle fleet .
Geographic coverage requirements
For the recharging of light electric vehicles, the power requirements to be supplied will depend on the size of the registered fleet, at the rate of at least 1 kW per electric vehicle on the territory, specifies the text. Coverage requirements are also set, with the ambition of a public station every 60 kilometers on the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) by 2025 (with at least one ultra-fast terminal, with a power greater than 150 kW).
The objective is to have covered the main network by the end of 2025, then all of it by 2030, ensuring “total interoperability” and “easy to use” infrastructures. Europe starts from afar. In a report from May 2021, the European Court of Auditors points out that “travelling the EU at the wheel of an electric vehicle remains complicated”.
“Availability of terminals varies from country to country, payment systems are not harmonized […] and the information available to consumers is not enough,” she adds. The situation has since improved slightly, but remains insufficient.
For the sake of realism and efficiency, these obligations will be lower and flexible in areas with low and very low traffic. A deadline is also left for the terminals dedicated to electric heavy goods vehicles (a technologically less mature market than that of light vehicles), which will have to be deployed between 2025 and 2030, “by encouraging a logic of corridor”. The same schedule has been adopted for the hydrogen refueling points.
Ambitions considered insufficient
“This proposal plays an important role in accelerating the deployment of these infrastructures so as not to slow down the use of vehicles and to initiate a virtuous circle”, welcomes the French Presidency of the Council of the EU.
However, it is not certain that manufacturers find these provisions sufficient. For months, their European lobby, ACEA, has been warning about the lack of will of member states to deploy the necessary network. At the end of March, in a new study entrusted to McKinsey firm he estimated that Europe would need 6.8 million charging points by 2030 if it wants to meet the target of reducing pollutant emissions from cars by 55%.
Adoption by the end of the year
“This is almost twice as much as what the Commission proposes with its regulations”, underlines the study, which calls for the installation of 14,000 charging points per week across the continent, against a current rate of around 2,000. In the “Green Deal”, the Commission has set an initial target of one million terminals in 2025.
The UFE (French Electricity Union) had she also judged the ambitions of Brussels insufficient, considering that it was necessary to double the objectives, at least by 2030.
The draft regulation should still evolve. It is currently being studied by the European Parliament, which aims to adopt its version of the text at the September plenary session. Such a timetable would give hope for final adoption, after final negotiations between the Council and Parliament, by the end of the year.