The objective of 100,000 charging stations in France was initially announced for the end of 2021. Faced with the difficult context, it was postponed to 2022, without success. The new date is set for mid-2023.
Avere-France (National Association for the Development of Electric Mobility) has just published on February 7, 2023 his last barometer charging infrastructure. With 85,284 terminals recorded on January 31, 2023, France has still not reached its target of 100,000 terminals promised for the end of 2021 by Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, then Minister of Transport. The installation of charging stations accessible to the public has nevertheless progressed in 2022, but not enough to catch up with the accumulated delay.
” The objective of 100,000 terminals should be reached in the second quarter of 2023 said Olivia Grégoire, Minister of SMEs, during a debate in the Senate. With a range of 2 to 5,000 terminals installed in public space per month over the last few months, the objective should finally be reached before the end of the first half of 2023.
In 2022, more than 28,000 charging stations have been installed in France
The installation of charging stations open to the public accelerated significantly in 2022 compared to 2021. 28,440 stations were added during the year, bringing their number to 82,107 throughout France. This is 17% more installation, compared to 2021.
Despite the context, of covid and then the shortage of semiconductors, installations are continuing at a good pace. ” We got a little late, I don’t deny it: the context was a bit difficult “, confessed the Minister in front of the Senate.
The equipment of motorway service areas contributed to this result. The APRR/AREA network even indicated at the beginning of January that all of its rest areas were now equipped with charging points, mainly fast charging above 150 kW. The Sanef network has already reached 85% of its objective. As for Vinci, the company is giving itself until the end of 2023 to have equipped all the areas.
These good results are also based on many private players who equip car parks in commercial areas and hotel sites: Power Dot, Electra, Allego or even Lidl, which is starting to install stations with multiple charging points available with different powers. .
In January 2023, according to Avere, 989 new charging stations were created, providing electric vehicles with 3,177 additional charging points.
More terminals, that’s good. Terminals that work, it’s better
The objective of 100,000 terminals is a good starting point to help the transition to electric cars. The most important thing for motorists, who are switching to electric cars, is to have access to charging stations that work properly when they need them.
According to the figures from the Avere barometer, there is still room for improvement so that the reliability of charging stations is no longer a problem. The availability of charging stations for the month of January was:
- 86% for alternating current terminals (between 7 and 22 kW);
- 83% for direct current terminals of less than 150 kW power;
- 78% for ultra-fast charging stations over 150 kW (Ionity, Fastned, Total, etc.).
We had the unpleasant experience of this, just last week, when an Ionity terminal broke down a few minutes after the start of charging. It was able to be restarted remotely, but the charging station failed again a few minutes later. Far from being isolated cases, these problems can be specific, of the order of a few minutes, the time to call the operator for a restart, but for other operators, the delays can also quickly lengthen to A few days. Which is far from reassuring the motorist who is reluctant to go electric.
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