German car industry wants faster expansion of charging network

In June it appeared that the German government is going back on the goal of 1 million public charging points for electric cars by 2030. Fewer public charging points would be needed than expected, because many people charge at home. The German car industry prefers to see it go the other way. Germany must drastically increase the number of public charging points for electric cars to keep pace with the sale of plug-in vehicles, the VDA, the German association for the automotive industry, is calling.

“To reach the target, the growth rate of the last twelve months would have to be roughly quadrupled,” VDA chairman Hildegard Müller told the magazine. The Mirror. According to the VDA, only about 90,000 of the previously intended 1 million public charging points have been installed. The pace at which new charging points are added has picked up recently. “This must certainly continue now,” says Müller, “because Germany still has a lot to catch up on”.

At the beginning of this year, there were no public charging points in about half of all municipalities in Germany, and more than eight out of ten municipalities had no fast charging points. The number of electric cars on German roads has increased considerably in recent years. In the first half of this year, approximately 300,000 fully electric cars and plug-in hybrids were registered. Plug cars even accounted for almost a quarter of all new passenger car registrations in June.

In addition to a better charging infrastructure, VDA chairman Müller also advocates an expansion of the electricity grid in Germany. According to her, this plays a key role in the success of electric cars. “And there is still a lot of catching up to do here,” she emphasises. According to her, the power grid should not become “the bottleneck of e-mobility”.