Current market challenges will impact the way in which EV charging infrastructure is deployed.
While most EV owners do their battery charging at home and work, roll-out of publicly accessible charging will be critical as countries leading in EV deployment enter a stage where simpler and improved autonomy will be demanded by EV owners.
Publicly accessible chargers reached 1.3 million units in 2020, of which 30 percent are fast chargers. Installation of publicly accessible chargers was up 45 percent, a slower pace than the 85 percent in 2019, likely because work was interrupted in key markets due to the pandemic. China leads the world in availability of both slow and fast publicly accessible chargers.
Slow EV Chargers
The pace of slow charger (charging power below 22 kW) installations in China in 2020 increased by 65 percent to about 500 000 publicly accessible slow chargers. This represents more than half of the world’s stock of slow chargers. Europe is second with around 250,000 slow chargers, with installations increasing one-third in 2020.
The Netherlands leads in Europe with more than 63,000 slow chargers. Sweden, Finland and Iceland doubled their stock of slow chargers in 2020.
Installation of slow chargers in the United States increased 28 percent in 2020 from the prior year to total 82,000. The number of slow chargers installed in Korea rose 45 percent in 2020 to 54,000, putting it in second place.
Fast EV Chargers
The pace of fast charger (charging power more than 22 kW) installations in China in 2020 increased by 44 percent to almost 310,000 fast chargers, slower than the 93 percent pace of annual growth in 2019.
The relatively high number of publically available fast chargers in China is to compensate for a paucity of private charging options and to facilitate achievement of goals for rapid EV deployment. In Europe, fast chargers are being rolled out at a higher rate than slow ones.
There are now more than 38,000 public fast chargers, up 55 percent in 2020, including nearly 7,500 in Germany, 6,200 in the United Kingdom, 4,000 in France and 2,000 in the Netherlands.
The United States counts 17,000 fast chargers, of which nearly 60 percent are Tesla superchargers. Korea has 9,800 fast chargers. Publicly accessible fast chargers facilitate longer journeys. As they are increasingly deployed, they will enable longer trips and encourage late adopters without access to private charging to purchase an electric vehicle.
