Sunday, August 31, 2014

EV Business Case - Charging Points

One day, every charging station will be as fast as Tesla is right now...

One of the most important supports for the electric car is a sufficient charging station density in order to avoid being stranded on the road and also that there should be enough charge cord outlets for everyone willing to charge, avoiding certain problems that are appearing in plug-in friendly areas.

For that reason, here are the EV markets with highest (and lowest) ratio between Plug-in Vehicles and Charging Stations:

(ABB, EFACEC, Fuji, Schneider, Delta and others, please take notes!)

Markets With highest ratio between Electric Vehicles and Fast-Charging Stations

China - 53 ev's per charging point
Japan - 37
USA - 28
Australia - 19
Sweden - 15

These are the Top 5 markets with worst ratio, speaking of each one individually, China EV market is growing fast and the charging grid is lagging behind, which it is an enormous business opportunity for every Charging Station manufacturer present there;

In Japan there's a widespread grid of slow-charging stations, but the number of fast-charging stations needed for the casual recharge during a longer trip is still small for the high number of ev's present;

The US and Sweden are a case of high numbers of ev's being delivered faster than the number of charging stations build;

Lastly, Australia is a totally different case, while the EV market is still small (Less than 1.000 units), the number of charging stations (45) is almost non-existent in such a vast country. This is a case where the Chicken (Electric car) and Egg (Charging Station) are both in very early stages...


 Markets With lowest ratio between Electric Vehicles and Fast-Charging Stations

Portugal - 1,6 ev's per charging point
Ireland - 2,4
Finland - 4,5
Estonia - 5,1
Austria - 6,0

In the Top 5 markets with lowest ratio, there are three (Portugal, Ireland and Finland) where the reaction of consumers to plug-ins wasn't enthusiastic and sales remained below expectations, which meant that the grid, at least in Portugal and Ireland, is too big for the number of EV's rolling there.

Estonia is a different case, as it is the first country with a complete EV charging network with nationwide coverage, with fast chargers available along highways at a minimum distance of between 40 to 60 km, with a higher density on urban areas. The nationwide network of fast chargers were fully financed by the Estonian government in order to get Carbon Credits.

Finally, Austria is a solid case of correlation between plug-ins and charging stations market growth, with both increasing numbers at a relatively similar rate. 

9 comments:

  1. 579%(!) increase of EV sales in Sweden for August 2014 compared to August 2013.

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    1. could you tell me where you found this information? thank you!

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    2. There are a number of websites that gather this kind of info, i would advise you the chargepoint.com

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  2. I don't know if this is still the right place to report, but hell, Ireland has put up a fight in August! Despite sales dropping by over 13,000 units compared to July, plug-ins did not follow the trend! 28 Pure Electrics were sold, the pure EVs alone made a 0.57% share!

    22 LEAFs. 1 Zoe, 6 out of the 11 Outlanders where PHEVs! 2 BMW i3 BEVs and 2 REXes! 1 BMW i8! 3 Model Ses!

    To show how much it stands out, the LEAF alone managed to make 0.45% or the whole market (6.3% of Nissan share) and managed to outsell much of the ordinary competition like the Peugoet 208 and 308 while very close to other common cars like the Renault Megane or Ford Mondeo.

    offib

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    1. Well, it looks that Ireland deserves another article on EVS... :)

      Is this the tipping point for the Irish EV market?

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    2. Ah great! I've told Jay Cole of InsideEvs about it too, we'll see if it gets mentioned (Ireland mainly gets bad press anyway).

      Fingers crossed that if they carry on with little of the volatile fluctuation the rest of the car market had! If so, who knows? Plug-in sales might break 1% or 2% through October - Decemeber when almost literally no one is buying a car!

      January 2015 will certinally show how much we're progressing, with Nissan and Mitsubishi properly advertising their offerings, 2015 could acutally give the LEAF some competition and the PHEV a fair start! Also, VW, the largest seller here might walk on to the scene too! Their Passat plug-in has already been mentioned in the papers.

      August was surprising without a doubt! I wasn't expecting more than 5 units, or 10 if I was dreamin'! I don't like the aim or hope high and come up short, so I always manage to be surprised, but it's really showing it, this could be the tipping point.

      The worst case scenario would be another hiatus like 2013.

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    3. Do you now the ratio between Electric Vehicles and Fast-Charging Stations for Norway? With almost 36,000 registered cars and over 5,600 charging point Norway should rank about the top 5.

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    4. Nearly there, it had a 6,5 ratio.

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