BERLIN (HPD) — Germany is keen to massively expand charging stations for electric vehicles, investing 6.3 billion euros ($6.17 billion) over the next three years and reckoning more people will ditch combustion vehicles and opt for ones that don’t. They harm the environment so much.
The Minister of Transport presented on Wednesday a “master plan” to improve the charging infrastructure, which hours before was approved by the cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“We are not just any automobile production center, but one of the main ones in the world. that is why it is important for us that what we are preparing is successful,” the minister, Volker Wissing, told reporters in Berlin.
“We need future expansion of charging station infrastructure that meets demand and is easy to use,” he added.
The market share of electric cars in Germany has risen 24.8% year-on-year to 14.6% of all new cars registered, according to figures from the Federal Office for Motor Vehicles.
There are some 70,000 charging stations in the country, but only about 11,000 of them are fast-charging, the ministry added.
That’s not enough to meet current demand and will be even less as the number of electric vehicles available increases. Furthermore, there is a huge disparity in the availability of charging stations in urban and rural areas.
Germany aims to have one million charging stations for electric vehicles by 2030.
In order to increase the number of charging stations, the federal government will, among other things, provide land, especially that adjacent to highways, for the construction of power stations.
Electric car owners will be offered subsidies to install solar panels and batteries in their homes to recharge their vehicles overnight.