The French are flocking to electric cars – 20% of purchases – and, good news! they will be able to recharge their vehicle just about anywhere in France: the fleet has finally reached, four months late, the bar of 100,000 terminals available. Clément Molizon, general delegate of the National Association for the Development of Electric Mobility (Avere), gives an update on this deployment.
Where is the network of electrical terminals in France?
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Clement Molizon. This Friday, May 5, we will reach the goal of 100,000 terminals accessible in France. This course had been set in 2018 for the end of 2022 as part of the strategic contract for the automotive sector, before the former Minister of Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari announced it for the end of 2021. It was far too ambitious as a political will. , since we only had 30,000 bollards installed in France at the time, but this imperative allowed everyone to work twice as hard. We were then at a rate of installation of 4,000 terminals per year, we have now moved to 4,000 terminals per month. To finally return to the initial objective of 100,000 terminals by the end of 2022. We have succeeded, only four months late. Our network is less dense than in the Netherlands, but more efficient than in Germany.
Who is in charge of this deployment?
Basically, municipalities, local authorities, companies, shopping centers, supermarkets or car parks. There is a whole range of different actors. It is not the State that leads the project, it is content to give the impetus and to define the framework according to European imperatives: the Community regulations in fact provide for a ratio of 1.3 kW of installed power per car, and we are now well beyond that, at almost 4kW. We will also respect, from this summer, the obligations on the motorways (at least 150 kW every 60 km)
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Can we make a typology of these 100,000 terminals?
Most of them, 90%, are slow or normal charging and 10% of them are fast or ultra-fast. 22% are placed on the public road and easily accessible, 39% in commercial car parks, 34% in Indigo-type commercial car parks, and the rest in various businesses. No national plan has been fixed, no distribution is imperative: it is the economic interest that must meet the needs. The essential point is that 80% of the motorway service areas are already equipped with fast terminals, that we will very quickly be at 90% and that travel will therefore be entirely possible throughout the territory: the motorway network has been deliberately oversized to avoid pressure during the holidays.
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Are there still black spots to solve?
Rather, there are priorities to monitor. In rural areas, or urban peripheries, electric car users can all be easily connected with their own home installation, and this will be their main charging point. In condominiums, in cities, this must be planned in a more collective way. There is a quality problem with the first infrastructures, which have been badly maintained and can be regularly faulty, but in itself the overall network seems suitable to us, even if this is subjective. In our last survey of electric vehicle owners, at the end of 2020, 96% were satisfied with their choice. But they were still pioneers, more militant, and the threshold of tolerance for imperfections will decrease as the electric car will spread and reach less concerned populations. For the moment, we have not reported any particular problems on the territory.
Now, what should be the course?
The next step is to keep going harder. The network must reach 380,000 to 430,000 terminals by 2030. The President of the Republic set the target of 400,000 terminals at the last Motor Show, for 2030. In other words, in seven years it will be necessary to set four times more limits than what we have done in ten years! It will be quite a shock, but the electric car market is very dynamic, ahead of all forecasts: of the new vehicles sold in dealerships, one in five is electric or plug-in hybrid, which is much more than expected. . The fleet in France has reached the 1.2 million mark out of 40 million cars, and it will reach the 50% mark between 2035 and 2040.
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So we can go on the French roads without anxiety for the next vacation?
You can leave without any problem, yes, but not on an adventure: driving in electric is planned, with an application that will tell you where and when to stop, how to view the terminals. It will take a break on average every two hours. You will not be able to do Paris Marseille in one go, but this has always been advised against by Road Safety…
