BERLIN/BONN (dpa-AFX) - There are more and more public charging points for electric cars. The Federal Network Agency now counts well over 140,000 charging points. This means that fewer electric cars now have to share a charging point than a year ago, according to calculations by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). And unlike vehicle sales, the momentum in network expansion is likely to continue.

How many charging points are there?

The latest data from the Federal Network Agency as of September 1 shows 145,857 charging points. 31,063 of these are fast-charging points with a capacity of at least 22 kilowatts. However, the actual number is probably significantly higher, as only facilities for which the operator has completed the registration process and agreed to publication are displayed, as the Federal Network Agency writes. Experience shows that there will probably also be numerous late registrations.

How big is the growth?

This is not so easy to answer, as the Federal Network Agency always corrects the comparative figures from previous years significantly upwards in retrospect because there are late registrations of charging stations. If you now take a current figure that contains no or few late registrations and compare it with the previous year's figure, which contains many late registrations, this distorts the result. To prevent this, the VDA uses the figures reported a year ago as comparative values for its calculations. This means that both figures lack late registrations, which makes the comparison fairer. In this way, the association calculates an increase of a good 45,000 charging points from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024. That would be faster than last year. However, the figure is only an approximation. If only the currently reported figures were used for both dates, this would result in significantly slower growth of around 33,500 charging points within a year - although this would probably be significantly underestimated.

How is the charging network developing compared to the number of e-cars?

The German Federal Motor Transport Authority reported 2.48 million purely battery-powered electric cars and plug-in hybrids at mid-year. This means that there is an average of 17.3 electric cars per publicly accessible charging point. This is significantly better than a year ago, when there were still around 21 e-cars according to the VDA's calculation method. However, in addition to the rather rapid growth of the charging network, the fact that the number of e-vehicles has recently grown much more slowly has also contributed to this.

Where is the network densest?

That depends on how you define dense. Of course, the most charging points per square kilometer are in cities. However, demand is also correspondingly higher here because there are more electric cars.

An alternative is to compare the number of electric cars with the number of charging points. Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia have the best coverage of all the federal states. According to the VDA, there are 11.8, 11.9 and 12.0 electric cars per charging point respectively. However, the states also owe their good performance in this category to the fact that they are among the worst performers in Germany in terms of the proportion of electric cars. The worst ratios are found in Saarland with 24.3 electric cars per charging point and Rhineland-Palatinate with 21.7.

The ranking looks slightly different if you compare the number of charging points with the number of vehicles in general rather than the number of electric cars. In other words, the question is how well the state is prepared for a ramp-up of electromobility. Then Berlin, Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg are ahead - also because they are no longer penalized in this calculation for their above-average e-car shares. Saarland remains at the bottom of the table - but then behind Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate.

And where is the most efficient?

The charging network is not equally efficient everywhere. According to the Federal Network Agency, the highest charging capacity as of July 1, 2024 is in Bavaria, which is the only federal state to exceed the one gigawatt mark. It is followed by North Rhine-Westphalia with 938 megawatts and Baden-Württemberg with 775 megawatts. However, these states are also the three most populous and have the most charging points. Looking at the average power of the installed charging points, Thuringia is in the lead with an average of 50.2 kilowatts. It is followed by Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate with values just over 49 kilowatts. Berlin and Bremen have the weakest charging points on average with 24 and 26 kilowatts respectively.

So what about the charging infrastructure?

Again, it depends: There are actually supposed to be 15 million e-cars on German roads by 2030. This number would be far too large for the current network. However, there are considerable doubts that this figure will be reached and the network continues to grow. There are also different perspectives on the current situation. The German Association of Energy and Water Industries recently complained that the occupancy rate of the charging points was too low for the operators. At the time, the association cited an average figure of 14.6 percent of charging stations occupied at the same time.

The VDA still sees a great need for action in the expansion of the charging infrastructure and criticizes, among other things, large regional differences. In addition, a good third of municipalities do not yet have a single public charging point and only one in four has at least one fast charging point. A good charging infrastructure is a key factor in persuading people to switch to e-mobility, says VDA President Hildegard Müller. The expansion must therefore run ahead and be pushed politically./ruc/DP/zb