Abstract
Plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) can be a main lever towards a decarbonised road transport system. The PEV market uptake needs to be nurtured by appropriate support measures for users, for technological advances related to the vehicle and its components, and for all relevant recharging infrastructure deployment. This paper focuses on the role of PEV recharging infrastructure for electric passenger car uptake in Europe. It examines the status of road transport electrification, relevant policies, incentives and national plans. We find that the status and plans of PEV and recharging infrastructure and the corresponding support measures vary significantly between countries. The PEV share in the various analysed countries ranged in 2017 from 0.01% to 5.49% and is estimated to reach values between 0.05% and 12.71% in 2020. The corresponding ratio of PEV per one publicly accessible recharging point ranged between 1 and 60 and is estimated to vary between 3 and 161 in 2020. Diverging plans could lead to market fragmentation in the European Union (EU) and impede the EU-wide circulation of PEVs. The appropriate level of recharging infrastructure should be determined to both support PEV deployment and to prevent sunk investments. Different country experiences vis-à-vis PEV and infrastructure support could be useful to identify best practices.
Highlights
The transition to a low-carbon economy is one of the key priorities for the European Union (EU)and since transport is still one of the main CO2 and pollutant emitters, its decarbonisation is key to achieving this
In spite of the increasing market penetration, barriers for plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) mass market uptake remain since consumers tend to be concerned about specific electro-mobility characteristics that can act as a restraining factor, including the purchase costs, depreciation, driving range, number of models offered, and recharging infrastructure availability
As a first step, recharging infrastructure data necessary for the analysis were collected focusing on the status, future targets and timelines according to the NPFs
Summary
The transition to a low-carbon economy is one of the key priorities for the European Union (EU)and since transport is still one of the main CO2 and pollutant emitters, its decarbonisation is key to achieving this. The introduction of low and zero emission vehicles could be one of the catalysing factors supporting transport decarbonisation and the mitigation of the environmental impacts of internal combustion engines and traditional mobility solutions [2]. Even though figures show that electric vehicles have been continuously increasing their market share and have turned from a niche market in the early 2010s to a considerable market in several countries, the transition to electro-mobility is still neither full-scale, nor easy to achieve [3]. In spite of the increasing market penetration, barriers for plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) mass market uptake remain since consumers tend to be concerned about specific electro-mobility characteristics that can act as a restraining factor, including the purchase costs, depreciation, driving range, number of models offered, and recharging infrastructure availability. The aforementioned characteristics are related to vehicle development, apart from the last one that is related to the supporting infrastructure
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