Insufficient support for electric vehicle charging infrastructure hampers uptake, new report shows

Brussels, 12 April 2018 – A report published today by the European Environment Agency (EEA) shows that there is still serious underinvestment in electric vehicle recharging infrastructure across Europe, with only one in three EU member states providing incentives.

According to the EEA report, specific incentives for electric vehicle charging points were found in only 10 out of 28 EU countries. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) cautions that investments need to be stepped up, as future reductions of CO2 emissions from cars and vans are strongly dependent on increased sales of electric and other alternatively-powered vehicles.

This will only happen with an EU-wide roll-out of recharging and refuelling infrastructure. As the EEA pointed out in its report: “sufficient charging infrastructure is required to give people the confidence that fully electric vehicles will reliably meet their travel needs and help reduce anxiety linked with possible limitations in range.” In this respect, the Directive on Alternative Fuel Infrastructure (DAFI) set clear objectives for the 28 member states already back in 2014. So far, however, the implementation of DAFI by national governments has been poor. 

Although sales of electrically-chargeable vehicles have increased in line with the overall growth of car sales in recent years, their overall market share remains low (1.4% of total EU car sales), growing by just 0.8% between 2014 and 2017.

“Even though all manufacturers are expanding their portfolios of electric cars, we unfortunately see that market penetration of these vehicles is quite weak and patchy across the EU,” stated ACEA Secretary General, Erik Jonnaert. “Consumers looking for an alternative to diesel often opt for petrol or hybrid vehicles, but are not yet making the switch to electrically-chargeable cars on a large scale. This new EEA report confirms that a dense EU-wide network of recharging infrastructure is an absolute must if we want consumers throughout the EU to really embrace electric vehicles.”

Despite the fact that the European Commission has acknowledged that the market uptake of alternatively-powered vehicles and infrastructure roll-out are intrinsically connected, its recent proposal on post-2021 CO2 targets for passenger cars and vans does not link the availability of charging infrastructure to the proposed CO2 targets.

In order to reflect the reality of the market, ACEA believes that Europe’s long-term climate objectives should be linked to future infrastructure availability and consumer acceptance.


About ACEA

  • The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) represents the 14 major Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers: BMW Group, DAF Trucks, Daimler Truck, Ferrari, Ford of Europe, Honda Motor Europe, Hyundai Motor Europe, Iveco Group, JLR, Mercedes-Benz, Renault Group, Toyota Motor Europe, Volkswagen Group, and Volvo Group.
  • Visit www.acea.auto for more information about ACEA, and follow us on www.twitter.com/ACEA_auto or www.linkedin.com/company/ACEA/.

Contact:

  • Cara McLaughlin, Communications Director, cm@acea.auto, +32 485 88 66 47.
  • Ben Kennard, Content Editor and Press Manager, bk@acea.auto, +32 487 39 21 82

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About the EU automobile industry

  • 13.0 million Europeans work in the automotive sector
  • 11.5% of all manufacturing jobs in the EU
  • €374.6 billion in tax revenue for European governments
  • €101.9 billion trade surplus for the European Union
  • Over 7% of EU GDP generated by the auto industry
  • €59.1 billion in R&D spending annually, 31% of EU total
Content type Press release
Vehicle types All vehicles
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