© BMWK

Significant increase in charging points for electric vehicles

A dense network of charging points for electric vehicles is needed across the whole of Germany to allow electric mobility to really take off. By 2023, more than 112,000 environmentally-friendly charging points of this kind had already been registered by the Bundesnetzagentur.

Quiet humming instead of loud buzzing: the target for 2030 is to have 15 million environmentally-friendly electric vehicles on Germany’s roads. Working together in a system with smart electricity grids, electric vehicles are a key component of the energy reforms and are playing a key role for climate action due to their emissions-free drive. As from 2035, only cars with an emissions-free drive will be able to be registered within the EU. The most environmentally-friendly way of generating the electricity for electric vehicles is to use renewables. At the end of 2023, Germany had 112,179 charging points – almost three times the figure registered in 2020 (39,598). This figure had reached 57,740 by 2021 and 82,723 by 2022.

^{Not all charging points are the same}

A register of all charging points is kept by the Bundesnetzagentur. This register is public and can be viewed free of charge. The National Centre for Charging Infrastructure supports the Federal Government as it plans, implements and promotes the construction of new charging infrastructure. It registers all the relevant data and acts as an interface between all stakeholders. This allows for the need for new charging points to be assessed more accurately. It also shares knowledge, for instance about the differences between standard and fast charging points. Standard charging points rely on alternating current, whereas fast charging points use direct current. At the end of 2023, there were 93,109 standard charging points and 19,070 fast charging points in Germany. To put this into perspective: in 2020, there were 34,450 standard and 5,148 fast charging points; by 2022 this had increased to 69,487 and 13,236 respectively.

^{8,000 additional fast charging points at filling stations by 2028}

A complete rollout of the charging infrastructure to allow for fast and easy charging is key if people are to trust in electric mobility and be willing to buy an electric car. Nobody wants to worry about making it to the next filling station. But it is precisely there, at the filling stations, where there is still too little charging infrastructure that can be used instead of gasoline and diesel. At the end of 2023, only 7% of all filling stations had a charging point for electric vehicles.

This is why large chains of refilling stations are now under statutory obligation (in German only) to provide at least one fast charging point with an output of at least 150 kW as of 1 January 2028. The objective is to create an additional 8,000 fast charging points at or in the immediate vicinity of filling stations.