In an era marked by growing environmental concerns and the pursuit of sustainable solutions, the importance of e-mobility has emerged as a transformative force. The use of electric vehicles (EVs) contributes greatly to the reduction of carbon emissions. But are electricity markets slow to keep up? And how can manufacturers encourage the sale of EVs when more charging stations are needed?
Felix Hamer, EV Travel Hacker and Founder of Electric Felix, speaks to this: “Whenever I see a new fast charging station, I mostly think I want more plugs. I think that is the challenge for this decade…10 years from now, if you have super fast chargers but not that many, that will never work.”
Caro De Brouwer, Director of Network Development at Fastned, says, “En route charging will not look like anything new because fueling also looks like that, right? It takes you five minutes to fuel the car along the way. In order to do that at scale with the majority of the cars on the road being electric, these stations will have to look like fueling stations. They will have drive-thru lanes where there is constant movement.”
Jorg van Heesbeen, Jedlix CBO and Co-Founder, says, “If you have a long range car, you should be able to get 90% or more of the charging done at home in your own time, so that's super convenient…People who have EVs tend to have solar panels as well, so using the car for that or another type of differentiation – that's the next step.”
Jaap Burger, Senior Advisor at Regulatory Assistance Program (RAP), asks, “How much can EV drivers participate in electricity markets? I think that is where we still need to streamline regulation, especially at the European level. Regulation is in place to enable EVs to participate in the power system, but if you look at different markets, different countries, they are still lagging behind in things like smart meter roll out, which is a key enabler to be able to support time varying tariffs at home.”
