EU wants hundreds of thousands of charging stations for EV’s by 2020

Today, the European commission will submit draft legislation to build hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles across the European Union, reports Bloomberg.

The commission wants to break the ‘vicious circle’ that holds back the adoption of EV’s: there aren’t enough EV’s to build an infrastructure charging stations, nobody buys electric cars because they’re so expensive and there are no charging stations, and the vehicles are expensive because the demand is so low that they can’t be mass produced (which would bring down prices).

The proposal wants to put in place “a critical mass of charging points so that companies will mass produce the cars at reasonable prices,” Bloomber quotees the commission.

To give you an idea of the numbers:

• Germany from 1 937 charging points (2011) to 150 000 (2020)
• UK from 703 (2011) to 122 000 (2020)

The Commission also wants a common standard for charging plugs, based on a plug developed in Germany. The plan also calls for more hydrogen filling stations in 14 EU member states. The Commission wants the industry to foot the bill for this massive project.

Tell us: what’s holding you back from buying an EV? Is it the number of charging stations? “Range anxiety”? Price?

via Bloomberg, photo: UggBoy, Flickr

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