BONN (dpa-AFX) - In the first half of the year, the number of public charging points for electric cars in Germany rose by 13,302. The Federal Network Agency counted a total of 97,495 charging points as of July 1, according to data it published. The stock of fast charging points grew by 4110 to 18,577, almost twice as fast as the overall stock. This means a total of 3.37 gigawatts of charging capacity is publicly accessible nationwide. That is 795 megawatts more nominal capacity than at the beginning of the year.

The number of public charging points has grown strongly in recent years. Since the beginning of 2018, it has increased almost ninefold - with absolute growth increasing from year to year. In 2022, the number had risen by a good 23,500 - if the growth from the first half of the year were to continue, this figure would also be exceeded in 2023.

At the end of the first half of the year, Bavaria had the highest number of charging stations with 20,522, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia with 17,818 and Baden-Württemberg with 17,022. These three states also recorded the strongest absolute growth in the number of charging stations, in the same order.

According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, 1.17 million purely electric cars were registered nationwide on July 1. In purely arithmetical terms, there were 12 pure electric vehicles for every publicly accessible charging point.

However, this coverage rate varies greatly from state to state: it is particularly good in Saxony, where there are an average of 7.3 pure electric vehicles for every public charging point, followed by Thuringia and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 8.2 each, and Saxony-Anhalt with 8.4. However, one reason for this is that there are comparatively few electric cars there. Their share of the respective car population there is between 1.1 and 1.3 percent - that is only about half the national average.

Saarland has the worst supply in mathematical terms, with 16.3 pure electric vehicles per charging point, although their share of the car population is also below average there at 1.9 percent. Of the three leading states in terms of the number of charging points, Bavaria performs best with 10.8 electric vehicles per charging point. Baden-Württemberg has 11.3, while NRW has a below-average supply of 14.4./ruc/DP/zb