There are currently 8 terminals for electric cars in France

Last year’s target of 100,000 terminals was still not reached. But there is a growing proposal to make new stations better suited to the use of electrical conductors.

It can be called 100,000 terminal game. According to a recent survey by Avere France (an association for the promotion of electric vehicles), France had just over 82,000 charging points installed as of December 31, 2022. The government’s goal is to have 100,000 terminals in the area. therefore, after the first failure in 2021, it was re-released last year.

82.107 terminals work quite well

But according to professionals, both the goal and the dynamics are positive. According to Avere, the number of public charging points increased by 53% last year, or 28,400 additional points in one year. For comparison, at the beginning of 2021, there were slightly less than 35,000 charging points.

For Arthur Jouannic of the consulting firm LCP Delta, which advises companies on the energy transition, this installation of terminals follows the development of a fast-growing electricity market in 2022 despite a slow new market (more than 200,000 sales, i.e. 13% of sales). new market). And a bigger park (see box below). Carrying out this ratio, this gives an average of 8 public charging points for electric cars in the area.

Apart from the raw numbers for the number of terminals, it is interesting to look at the capacity of the freight network. The latter still consists of fairly massively slow terminals. 35% of these charging points in France offer less than 7.4 kW and 53% between 7.4 and 22 kW.

Another important (even important) piece of information: network availability. Avere reports a figure of 84% of the network available (neither in service nor out of service). If the metric is good enough, it can be critical during periods of high traffic, such as long weekends or holiday departures, when 16% of the network is unavailable. Moreover, this rate dropped to 76% of points available for ultra-fast charging over 150 kW in December. However, these terminals are mainly those supplying highway service areas.

What power is used for what?

Rather than the number of terminals, area network intelligence is key to effective deployment. In particular, this includes adapting the power of the terminal to the location of the motorist, and not stopping at the site during charging. As a general rule, in a motorway service area, you want to fill up quickly and also make room for other users after tolling is complete. If you stay at the mall or movie theater for 1 hour or more, on the other hand, charging less than 50 kW may be enough.

This is Power Dot’s entire strategy. This company has installed the fastest charging stations in France in 2022 (569 last year, and 6,000 are already planned for 2023). Its model is special because it varies the tariff and the power of the terminals according to its use. For example, Power Dot assumes this very high cost, installs a station in a supermarket parking lot, and then shares the revenue from paid charging.

Payment is a problem for drivers

One of the critical points in generalizing terminals is always payment. Between different networks, the impossibility of paying directly with a bank card at certain terminals or even reading prices is still too complicated for the user. And as with the Belib terminals in Paris, the recent increase in certain prices adds another negative sign.

However, the target of 100,000 terminals is still to be met this year. Now with a new challenge to consider: the government aims to put 2 million electric cars on the road by 2030. This will rapidly increase the demand for new charging stations.