When Mercedes-Benz launched its next generation of the E-Class in April, one message was loud and clear: This would be the German auto giant’s last combustion-engine model. The petrol-fueled executive drive is to be accompanied by three plug-in hybrid versions, and future E-Class models will be built on a new platform adapted for battery-powered cars.
Mercedes-Benz is not alone in deciding to wind up the combustion engine; Volkswagen has aired similar intentions for its much-loved Golf. And given the EU’s ambition to ban the sale of new polluting cars and vans by 2035, like-minded announcements from other automakers will undoubtedly follow.
“Electric vehicles are the future, and time is running out,” said Marcus Groll, chief operating officer and managing director of Ionity, an EV-charging–network joint venture among BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen (with Audi and Porsche) and financial investor firm BlackRock. “Due to legislation in the U.K. and EU countries, combustion-engine cars will be incrementally phased out and EVs will become the new normal. In Norway, at least 90% of new car sales are EVs, and it’s only a matter of a few years before the majority of new cars across Europe will be electric.”
Be it in cities, towns, suburban sprawls or along motorways, charging infrastructure is vital to this EV transition. Europe is already home to 450,000 charging points, with an eclectic mix of infrastructure providers racing to grow their charger networks. Ionity claims to be the largest network with a pan-European presence; the organization has some 477 charging sites, with 2,300 high-power charging points, peppered across the continent and aims to at least double its site numbers by 2025. At the same time, BP Pulse, owner of one of the U.K.’s largest charging networks, is steadily growing its 8,750-strong fleet of charging points, while Shell’s Newmotion has more than 200,000 points worldwide. Other key players include Tesla, Gridserve, Fastned, Osprey, Engie/GeniePoint and Ecotricity’s Electric Highway.
Thus far, rollout has centered on high-demand nations, such as the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany and the Nordic countries. Figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association reveal that half of all charging points in the European Union are in the Netherlands and Germany. But this is changing.
According to Groll at Ionity, activities in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Eastern Europe are gathering momentum. “These markets will become significant in the next two [to] four years,” he said. “EV uptake is so quick that we have to roll out [infrastructure] as quickly as possible across all of Europe.”
The sheer number of charging points that will be needed across Europe as EV demand grows is mind-boggling. McKinsey recently reported that by 2030, the EU-27 would need at least 3.4 million public chargers to meet the needs of its “future EV fleet.” According to the global management consultancy firm, this infrastructure growth would entail charger installation rates rising from 1,600 a week (in 2021) to more than 10,000 a week. And as charging points proliferate, roadblocks are emerging.
Obtaining building permits from highway authorities or local municipalities can be tediously slow, for example, but ensuring adequate power supplies for the chargers can be a real deal-breaker. As part of its EV infrastructure analyses, McKinsey highlighted how distributing electricity to millions of EV charging points would demand massive power grid upgrades, to the tune of €41.2 billion. Groll concurred, pointing out that grid capacity is at the top of many an infrastructure supplier’s checklist.
“[Charging station location] is largely opportunity-driven right now … but when we see an attractive piece of land, we immediately check with the local grid operator to see how much power is available at that site,” said the Ionity COO. “If the operator says, ‘You can have just 200 kW now or you have to wait a few years to get 2 MW,’ then we’ll cancel for sure.”
Upgrading the local grid “can take a long time; it’s a definite bottleneck in many countries,” he added. “The U.K., Spain and Eastern Europe can be very tricky when it comes to capacity, whereas Nordic countries are easier—their grid operators have probably invested more money [in networks] in the past and have more capacity to give us.”
Sam Clarke, chief vehicle officer at Gridserve, echoed the power supply concerns. “High-power EV charging traditionally requires new grid connections, which can be challenging and expensive and, in some cases, [can] take a lot of time to deliver,” Clarke said.
One way to deal with limited grid capacity is to integrate battery energy storage systems (BESS) at a charging point site, to store energy during quiet periods and then provide rapid high-power charging at busy times.
Infrastructure suppliers are using these in innovative ways. Some of Ionity’s U.K. sites use continually charging batteries to boost site power so many EVs can charge at the same time, while Gridserve uses solar power with battery systems to supply power to its high-power chargers. Tesla’s 30-MW BESS power packs are widely used at charging stations. Volkswagen’s Elli has integrated battery storage into a charging station in Germany that connects to a low-voltage grid. And at the U.K.’s Oxford Energy Superhub, EDF Renewables has developed a grid-scale hybrid lithium-ion/vanadium flow battery that works in tandem with EV chargers from Fastned and Wenea. The setup connects directly to the U.K. National Grid’s high-voltage transmission network via a four-mile underground cable and has the capacity to supply power to 400 EVs.
Charging up
As ever more charging points line the streets, more charger technologies are emerging to serve different charging scenarios. For EV drivers without access to off-street parking, the very latest in pavement chargers could soon become indispensable. U.K.-based Trojan Energy’s “flat and flush” Aon Charger, for example, sits just below the pavement surface and can be linked via an underground cable to the household’s energy supply. In a similar vein, U.K.-based startup Urban Electric has been installing on-street pop-up chargers—which connect to the low-voltage network—across the U.K. And both Shell’s Ubitricity and U.K.-based Connected Kerb have developed lamppost and bollard on-street charging points. Indeed, chargers are swiftly being integrated into such “street furniture” across Europe.
Still, for many, charging is all about speed, and when it comes to powering up your EV battery, not all chargers are created equal. Home EV chargers, typically rated at 7 kW, take many hours to recharge an EV battery from empty, while “fast,” 22-kW public chargers in, say, a car park or service station charge a battery in about three hours. A “rapid,” 50-kW charger can charge up a battery in about 40 minutes, while “ultra-rapid” chargers—100 kW and more—can “fill” an EV battery in minutes. Ultra-rapid systems represent the future of EV chargers, and although only today’s top models—such as the Porsche Taycan or BMW iX—can accept these higher power capacities, this is set to change.
From the word “go,” Ionity opted to use only chargers that could deliver up to 350 kW of power in its charging stations. “We typically have six charging points in a station instead of 12 or 24,” Groll said. “In line with market take-up and our data, we update sites in high demand with additional chargers and add new sites. We’ve been early here … but have [always] put an emphasis on creating a comprehensive network across Europe in a cost-efficient way.”
There was more to Ionity’s decision than cost, however. As Groll pointed out, EVs are transitioning from a 400-V to an 800-V architecture, which allows charging at more than 150 kW, and the state-of-the-art 800-V architectures will be commonplace within a couple of years.
As they prepare for the transition, more infrastructure suppliers—including Gridserve and Fastned—have installed 350-kW chargers. “We use 350-kW chargers at our electric super hubs and forecourts to futureproof [our infrastructure] as EVs’ capabilities increase,” said Gridserve’s Clarke.
Is 350 kW sufficiently forward-looking? Said Groll, “EVs are all about range and charging speed. While both are continuously improving, 350 kW is and will remain state-of-the-art for the next few years.”
Inevitably, though, even higher-power chargers rated at, say, 400, 500 and 600 kW will follow. Indeed, Gridserve has already raised the bar, having installed what it calls the “U.K.’s fastest public charger,” a 360-kW unit, at one of its forecourts in October last year. This system can add about 100 miles to the range of an EV in less than five minutes.
Colin Herron, a professor at U.K.-based Newcastle University and founder of Zero Carbon Future, also believes that 800-V architectures could make the less-than-fast charging points redundant. “If I can charge up my car in just 15 minutes at a supermarket, I might just do that,” he says. “This architecture change is going to make a big difference to charging. The U.K. has far too many low-power charging points … eventually, there won’t be any 50-kW chargers.”
A veteran auto-industry figure, Herron has tracked the EV industry from its very beginning and is adamant that there is a missing element in many charging infrastructure rollout strategies: human behavior. Highlighting recent U.K. government plans, he said, “Charge point deployment is based on an economic model; it takes no consideration of technology development or behaviors. … It also assumes our country is homogenous and [rural] Cornwall is the same as [densely populated London Borough] Hillingdon. It’s totally useless.”
To counter this, Herron believes geospatial modeling needs to be applied to provide insight on how drivers will behave when faced with EV charging options, for example. “I drove into a council car park that had several new [lower-power] chargers, none of which had a car on,” he said. “So I’m wondering who will ever use these.”
Still, investigations into human behavior are beginning to take place. For example, Connected Kerb recently surveyed more than 2,000 U.K. residents on what they wanted from EV charging. When considering switching to an EV, 80% of drivers said reliable, affordable charging where their car is parked at home was essential or very important, while nearly 70% of respondents wanted rapid charging close to home.
Educating new customers on the intricacies of charging is key, said Groll. “I think there are so many myths about electric vehicles and charging, and we don’t want potential customers saying, ‘Let’s wait another few years because I’m afraid of this charging topic.’” And like Herron, Groll believes a better understanding of human behavior patterns is going to be critical. “We really need to get more understanding of this, so we are at the right locations where EV drivers actually want to charge,” he said.
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