Europe Surpasses 900,000 Public EV Charge Points | Hacker News Reader

Europe Surpasses 900,000 Public EV Charge Points

evmarketsreports.com

62 pointspeutetre57 comments

Sadly a lot of them do not work. At least in Norway. There are a lot of charge points here, but a lot of them are not functioning. (I know they get fixed, but then others stop working etc)

I dont know why they frequently stop working.

Are there any sites that monitor this kinda stuff?

https://www.plugshare.com/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41467421

Are they made by the same company that makes the ice cream machine for McDonald's or taken a play from their book? This ignores the more obvious reasons of vandalism

> The Netherlands has 169.216 public charge points, representing 19,5% of Europe’s total network.

Interesting, considering it's also the most bicycle friendly country in the world.

I wonder if they feel like they have enough charge points now.

I'd like to see the .216 charging station.

Not sure you're joking (Europe vs. US decimal point usage etc.), which would be fine of course, in the case you didn't it's 169216 charging stations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

(on the map of that article you can basically see the British Empire)

The joke in this case being "reading an English comment" rather than Europe vs. US: the decimal point is part of all flavours of written English, not just the US.

Yes, see the link, but as I assume most of the English speaking readers here are from the US (I might be wrong of course), I wrote US.

Not sure if this is a joke or serious. For those unfamiliar, period (.) is used as the thousands separator in European countries, whereas much of the world uses the comma (,). The case for the decimal separator is switched. So 69.76 would be written as 69,76 in Europe.

It depends where in Europe ;) Switzerland, Liechtenstein and United Kingdom use decimal point.

In Romania the comma should be the decimal separator in theory.

In practice my online banking uses the dot, and doesn't accept commas anywhere. And it's a Romanian bank with a homemade web interface.

I just checked 3 random paper receipts i had lying around (from different stores), two use the comma and one the dot.

The French, on the other hand, religiously use the comma as a decimal separator.

In Switzerland we mostly use the format 12'345'678.901

Obviously I'm biased but I think it's the best system because there's no room for confusion.

But you do use a decimal point. Liechtenstein uses exactly the same format.

Interesting! Does it differ in different languages? I assumed German Swiss will use the same system as Germany, French Swiss the same in French, etc.

It's not much of the world, it about "the former British empire", and the world is more or less split in half (check the wikipedia link that one of the sibling comments posted)

I think that the best approach is to avoid to use comma or period as a thousand separator and just consider both of them as a decimal separator. It seems that the recommended approach for digit grouping is just a thin space [1], but since that character is not something that you can find on a regular keyboard and the regular space can be too wide, I think that one of the alternatives (like the apostrophe) is fine too. 169.216 or 169.216 can both be ambiguous , 169 216 and 169'216 or 169_216 much less

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Digit_groupi...

There might be enough, but there are still lots of places with hardly any. As stated in the report, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht are in the top 10, but many smaller towns are still mostly devoid of chargers (outside private property). Given that the country is not that big, and tesla superchargers are open to all vehicules here, there is usually a cheap and fast supercharger available within range. And in general, these are cheaper than AC-chargers in most locations, sometimes even cheaper than home-charging.

> Interesting, considering it's also the most bicycle friendly country in the world.

Yes, but they also have for example a 5 lane highway from Utrecht to Amsterdam and it gets packed solid every now and then.

No. Two charging points near my home but always occupied. We need more. It's stopping me from buying an EV actually since I can't charge it reliably.

Lots of muncipalities have a charge point program, allowing citizens to request charge points, and if several requests come in for the same neigbourhood a charge point is placed (from a commercial provider)

The goal of 8.8 million charge points by 2030 goal seems within reach given the growth rates presented here. This seems like a major challenge to grid stability. How are they going to address this? Or maybe I'm wrong?

Maybe they are counting on diminishing returns (urban saturation, slow rural adoption rate, tech/capacity limitations) and real-world constraints (grid capacity, regulation hurdles, high capex/investment risk, land limitation, inconsistent standards, etc.) acting as natural braking mechanism or something? But, if that were the case, maybe the goal is not actually in hand?

Graph shows a rate of about 250k a year when they'd need about 1,600k a year to reach the goal. At the current rate they'll get to 8.8 million in 32 years... Installation rate must improve drastically.

You need to look at the rate increase. Graph shows a rate of about 100k 3 years ago and 350k today, meaning adding about 70k production per year. To calculate what we have built by 2030 with that rate we get 70 * 5 * 6 / 2 = 1050 from the second derivative and 1750 from the first, so would be 2.8 million points by 2030.

Still not exactly there, but would reach the target a few years later, so they aren't that far off from reaching it 2030, just need to increase production a bit faster.

2.8 million in 2030 is still way off.

Bottom line is that target is never going to be met on time and "few years late" will be quite a few in my estimation.

I don't think production is the bottleneck. It's the actual installation with all that in entails and the electric infrastructure.

Obviously the grid can't handle 8.8 million charge points in use simultaneously. It's cars that drive demand, not charge points.

If you convert all ICE cars to EV's, you'll add about 20% to electricity usage. If it takes 10 years to convert all new car sales to electric, and another 10 years before most of the old ICE vehicles stop being used, that means we have about 20 years to add 20% to the grid capacity. 1% a year is very feasible.

The UK grid estimate a 10% increase

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...

> The highest peak electricity demand in the UK in recent years was 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.

> Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002, and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.

Many EU countries are making very large investments in electrification, renewable energy, and energy storage. After factoring in those it's a fairly tractable problem.

How much do these cost to use? AIUI electricity prices in Europe are pretty high. What's the differential between a filling up a gas tank and filling up an EV?

That is very depending on the country and the provider and if you have a contract. It’s quite a complex situation.

In the UK - even at the 'worst' public charging, mile for mile - it is still cheaper to charge up than to drive a petrol or diesel car - and that isn't taking into account the reduced running costs of an electric car.

If you can do the majority of your charging at home, then it is significantly cheaper - but even someone without a home charging set up will find it is cheaper to run an electric car in the UK.

> In the UK - even at the 'worst' public charging, mile for mile - it is still cheaper to charge up than to drive a petrol or diesel car - and that isn't taking into account the reduced running costs of an electric car.

BP currently charge £0.65 per kwh and if a car gets 4 miles per kwh the you’re paying 16.25p per mile

So my car getting thrashed at 42 mpg using £1.36 Costco petrol costs about 14.7p per mile

And that’s not taking into account any of the finance , insurance or anything else.

Or that fuel tax is about 80% of the petrol cost.

But: in almost all situations filling up electrons is cheaper than gas.

It ranges from "electricity will cost you a little more per kilometer than gas" (very rare) to "electricity is slightly cheaper than gas" (most common) to "filling up your car with electricity gets you money back". (rare, but more common last year)

For Americans: My 1984 VW does 1l/8.5km. A full tank costs me over €95 in the Netherlands, and over €70 in neighboring countries. Driving to do a week surfing in France (2x1500km) costs me over €800 in petrol.

> "filling up your car with electricity gets you money back". (rare, but more common last year)

At home? Sure. Public chargers can have pretty significant margins, though.

You also picked a car with an abysmal efficiency though so I’m not sure how useful that is as a datapoint. I can do roughly 1000km with one full tank so the math in my case if I was doing your 2x1500km would be around 200€ based on current prices.

It's not representive, sure. Just painting a picture.

European cars are (were?) more fuel efficient than US ones. I guess, partly because of the price of petrol in Europe. There are Dodge Rams, oversized SUVs and other rediculously inefficient cars driving on dutch roads, but far less common than in the US.

In DK the ballpark savings is 25-50 US cents saved pr mile driven when public charging. But you can save even more at home or work. Unlimited public charging can also be had around 120USD a month. It’s around a half dollar for a public KwH and gas is around 9 usd/ gallon here.

> AIUI electricity prices in Europe are pretty high.

Gas price too so it's fine don't worry

95E10 was almost 2€/litre when I cycled past my usual fill-up spot. Although it wasn't that long when it was closer to 1.80€/litre.

Even at very high rates of e0.50/kWh and a big low efficiency EV of 160Wh/km, you're looking at ~12km/euro or 8eruo/100km. An efficient car is 5l/100km and good petrol prices are ~e1.6/l or 8euro/100km. Worst case, they're about the same.

More typical electric rates are half that, and many EVs are closer to 130Wh/km.

I can't speak to European charger rates. Here's the math for the US.

I've got an EV and an ICE crossover. The ICE crossover gets like 25mpg highway on a good day.

Let's go on a 100mi trip expecting to only charge by public fast chargers/gas stations.

Gas has been around $3/gal for a while near me. 100mi / 25mpg = 4gal * 3 = $12 in gas.

DC fast chargers around me for my car are ~$0.32/kWh. I'll get like 3.2mi/kWh highway driving my EV. 100mi / 3.2 = 31.25kWh * .32 = $10.

So slightly cheaper than my ICE. If I had a hybrid, it would beat it. 35mpg would be ~$8.57 for that trip. But DC fast chargers are very expensive; residential rates around me can be had for ~$0.12/kWh. Thus, charging at home would be ~$3.75.

Same experience for me in the US with a model Y. Charging at home the price is about 1/3 of gas equivalent cost. Charging at superchargers is pretty comparable to gas. Charging at home and not going to a gas station regularly though is also super nice.

Given that gas is expensive in europe, driving an EV is 50%+ or more cheaper than driving gas/diesel. My car will do ~17KWh/100km, charging at ~30ct/kwh is ~5ct/km. Comparing to a ICE car, doing 5L/100km at $1.90 == ~9.5ct/km.

If you have solar and can charge at home, you basically drive for free

> If you have solar and can charge at home, you basically drive for free

You paid for the house, the solar and the new all-electric car though. So it depends on how long your commute is if it ends up cheaper or not.

Certainly cheaper than the oil well and refinery needed to drive an ICE for free! This means there's a guaranteed crossover point and the relevant variable becomes the lifecycle of the car. Will you drive an EV enough to make up for the infrastructure costs?

Except you seem to share the costs for the refinery and petrol extraction with millions of other drivers.

EVs are at best subsidized by governments, and even that is going away.

They really need to work on price and convenience for mass adoption.

This is true of electrical infrastructure as well. Solar is unique in that it's cheap enough that a family can consider slapping one on their roof for true self sufficiency, but that doesn't preclude industrial scale infrastructure (like nuke plants) from contributing as well.

50% cheaper feels disappointing for some reason. Also, right now, you have at least $10k of free gas when you buy an ICE car due to prices and tariffs. It’s pretty easy for poor people to make a choice.

I want an EV and save the world, but it’s still way too expensive and there are no chargers around me so I’ll have to wait.

It differs a lot per country/region and supplier. In the Netherlands, public charge points range between €0.30 en €0.80 per kWh depending on the supplier, while gas at the pump is around €2.10/L (=8.81 USD/gal). Electricity prices are high, but so are gas prices.

Probably no matter how high electricity costs, you can still save a lot by not using fuel, there are A LOT of taxes on fuel, for example in Italy, we have still one to support the Ethiopian war from 1935, here is a list to be translated https://www.alvolante.it/da_sapere/legge-e-burocrazia/accise...

Slow charging at the supermarket near me is 0.23 €/kWh for registered customers. I think Lidl is also around 0.20 €/kWh. Saw also that a McDonalds' charging station was charging 0.49 €/kWh.

Charging at home tonight between 00:00 and 07:00 would be an average of 0.067 €/kWh (electricity wholesale + margin + transfer + tax).

On a motorway, 50 to 80 eurocents per kWh is what I often see. There is not enough competition. It is still cheaper than what you’d spend on fossil fuels.

However, for day to day use you charge at home or at the office which is much cheaper (maybe 25 cents?).

I think "charge points per EV" (or similar) would also be a useful metric to have.

1 million in the UK

Any way to see them on a map?

There are various charge point location maps:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

https://map.openchargemap.io

https://www.plugshare.com/

https://www.zap-map.com/live/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com