First league table of e-charging networks for Europe – Many countries need to catch up

Berlin, June 28, 2021 – The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) has evaluated the expansion of the charging infrastructure in 31 European states and drawn up the first league table for the charging network in Europe. The results indicate how many publicly accessible charging points exist in each country in relation to its total passenger car fleet (gasoline, diesel and electric vehicles). The more public charging points there are, the more attractive it is for consumers to switch to electric drive. The top spot in the ranking goes to the Netherlands – followed by Norway and Sweden. Germany comes in second place just ahead of France on the absolute number of charging points, but is still below the European average when the total passenger car fleet is taken into consideration. The ratio of e-vehicles to charging stations also shows that many EU countries have some way to catch up.

Hildegard Müller, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), said, “At present a Europe-wide charging infrastructure does not exist, and unfortunately universal expansion is a long way off. If the European Commission is considering limiting registration to vehicles with electric drive in the future, it must ensure full coverage with a charging network throughout Europe. So now it must set binding expansion targets for all Member States. This includes charging stations at home, at work, on commercial premises and on public roads, all of which Netherlands take1st place in the ratio of passenger cars to public charging points – Germany is below average – Expansion of Europe-wide charging infrastructure is too slow for e-mobility targets.must be supplied with 100 percent green electricity. If we do not have enough charging points or sufficient green electricity for individual travel, we will not make the transformation to climate neutrality. A planning deficit of this type on the part of the European Commission would cost a great many jobs in many European countries, and considerably restrict ordinary citizens’ freedom of mobility.”

On average, Europe has one charging point for 887 passenger cars. Top place in the European charging network league table is currently occupied by the Netherlands, with 109 passenger cars to one charging point (82,263 charging points for 8,938,572 registered cars). Second place goes to Norway with 147 passenger cars per charging point. Norway has a total of 19,119 registered charging points and 2,816,038 registered passenger cars. Third place is taken by Sweden with 353 cars per charging point. Germany has 1,014 cars per charging point, which is still below the average and puts it in mere 12th place in the table, despite all the efforts made to date.

The precise ranking is as follows: the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, Belgium, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, France, Denmark, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Portugal, Ireland, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Spain, Malta, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania, Romania, Greece.

The European e-charging infrastructure league table is available online at: vda.de/eu_charging_network

The VDA’s European charging network league table includes the 27 Member States of the European Union, plus the UK, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The number of charging points is based on data from the European Alternative Fuels Observatory EAFO, which is financed by European Commission, as of the 1st quarter of 2021. The passenger car fleet data are based on information from national registration offices and/or associations. A charging point is defined as an “interface that is capable of charging one electric vehicle” according to the EU Directive on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFI). The charging network league table ranks countries by their number of registered cars (with all types of powertrains) in relation to the number of charging points.