Charging Electric Vehicles

Charging Electric Vehicles

There are three basic ways to charge electric vehicles:

  1. Plug-in charging,
  2. Battery swapping or
  3. Wireless charging
  • Plug-in charging

Plug-in charging is used by the majority of electric vehicles in Europe. Vehicles are physically connected to a charging point using a cable and a plug. Plug-in charging can occur wherever charging stations are sited: in homes, public streets or on commercial or private property.

Electric vehicles can normally be charged using normal household sockets, but this is slow because normal domestic sockets provide only a low supply of electric current. It can therefore take up to eight hours for a typical charge. This is often suitable for overnight charging. Faster plug-in charging requires specialised infrastructure. To date, most public plug-in stations established at city, regional or national levels offer only normal‑speed charging (EAFO, 2019).

  • Battery swapping

Battery swapping requires replacing a used battery with a fully charged one at designated swapping stations. This offers a fast way of quickly 'recharging' a vehicle. At present, no major providers in Europe offer battery swapping. A number of challenges have prevented battery-swapping technology from becoming mainstreamed, including a lack of electric vehicle models to support battery swapping, no standard type or size of battery, and high costs of developing the associated charging and swapping infrastructure.

  • Wireless charging

Wireless charging, also known as induction charging, does not necessitate a fixed physical connection between charging facilities and the vehicle. Instead, the system creates a localised electromagnetic field surrounding a charging pad, which is activated when an electric vehicle with a corresponding pad is positioned above it. This type of charging currently operates at only a selected few pilot locations and is yet to be commercialised. Examples of inductive charging pilot projects include wireless charging for buses at bus stations in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as some pilot testing for users of electric cars in Sweden (EEA, 2016).

Charging Infrastructure in Europe

European research has repeatedly concluded that, in most instances, it is possible to ensure everyday mobility using only common electric vehicles charging overnight at home. However, such guidance is necessarily simplified. It focuses on everyday mobility in urban areas and ignores long-distance commuting.

The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive (EU, 2014) provides an estimate of the desired amount of charging points to electric vehicle numbers: at least one public charging point for every 10 vehicles, always recognising new developments in vehicle, battery and charging infrastructure technology and based on the assumption that most private electric vehicle owners install their own home charging points.

Many available electric vehicle models, currently do not support fast charging, or offer it only as an expensive optional extra. For most users, slow charging is often sufficient, as most journeys are short trips only, so electric vehicles usually return to the charging point with a charge in the battery. Consumers remain concerned however that electric vehicles have a limited range. These concerns can be overcome by installing infrastructure that recharges vehicle batteries rapidly to allow long‑distance trips.

In most European countries there are only a few thousand public charging points, and they are usually slow charging facilities. Such public charging points are typically installed by public authorities, utility providers, electric vehicle manufacturers or other businesses.EU-level measures have however, encouraged the use of renewable electricity and smart charging to help with development and standardisation of charging infrastructure. Incentives at multilevels such as the introduction of lower taxes or the provision of free public parking for electric vehicles can help promote electric mobility. Countries that offer generous incentives and good charging infrastructure have typically had bigger market shares for electric road vehicles (EU, 2019).

In 2018 , Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK were classified as front runners in terms of network capacity for EV infrastructure; public charging points. Followers included the countries Italy, Portugal and Spain. Slow starters were composed of EU13 and Greece: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The front runners are predicted to account for 80% of EVs and public charging points in 2020. As technology becomes more affordable, it is predicted that the uptake in other countries will likely happen in two “waves”, through which the two other regions will catch up with the leading region thanks to stronger growth rates (Transport and Environment, 2018).

The Netherlands has the largest network of public charging points, with over 33,607 stations in 2018. Other countries with large numbers of public charging points include Germany (over 25, 431), France (over 23,000), the United Kingdom (around 13,000) and Norway (around 12,000). Bulgaria, Cyprus, Iceland and Lithuania have the lowest number of charging stations in Europe (under 40) (EAFO, 2019). Some countries are reducing the installation of new public slow-charging points, with more focus moving to expansion of fast-charging infrastructure.


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