France has achieved its first objective: with 100,000 electric charging stations installed on its territory, it is beginning to catch up with its European neighbors, but the question now arises of maintaining such a network and deploying fast charging, which is still largely a minority.
Initially planned for the end of 2021, then the end of 2022, the milestone will finally be reached with a few months delay at the beginning of May 2023. “It’s a real achievement,” said Clément Molizon, director general of Avere, which brings together all of the sector’s French manufacturers. “It is time to have a positive message and reassure on the state of deployment,” he stressed, while the failure to achieve this goal in time had been widely commented.
France, the largest country in the European Union and which until recently had the lowest number of charging stations per 100 km, is now the second best endowed country in terms of absolute number of stations, behind the Netherlands, Avere said. To continue to close the gap and meet the continued growth of electric mobility, Emmanuel Macron has set a goal of 400,000 charging stations by 2030. Avere sets it “between 330,000 and 480,000” by the end of the decade, according to Clément Molizon. The obligation to sell zero-emission vehicles (mainly electric) in Europe from 2035 is pushing manufacturers to insist on the deployment of charging stations.
Quality vs. quantity
But the multiplication of charge points is not enough, warn some actors. “What counts is also the quality of the recharge,” insists Matthieu Dischamps, General Manager France of Powerdot, one of the main operators of fast charging stations in France.
Currently, France has about 10% of fast charge points — above 50 kW of power. These facilities allow you to recharge your vehicle in 20 to 30 minutes for the sum of about 30 euros, depending on the size of the battery. “In Germany, we are rather at 18%” of fast charge points, underlines Mr. Dischamps for whom France should aim at 20% to be in agreement with the demand. “There are 1.3 million electric vehicles in France today, and the projection is that we will be at 13 million in 2030,” he warns. He cites supermarkets as an example: “When you go shopping, you should be able to recharge in 30-40 minutes”.
Highways on the front line
Currently, it is mainly the highways that benefit from these facilities. Like the APRR and Area motorway networks, 100% of whose rest areas are now equipped, “i.e. a recharging station every 30 km”, according to these companies. – Heavy investments – The investments for this type of installation are heavy. On the freeways, the stations must be oversized in order to absorb the flows during the big cross-country weekends and avoid saturation. “For profitability, on the freeway, we are not very far from 15 years,” says Pierre-Emmanuel Bredin, who is in charge of the 3,400 TotalEnergies service stations in France. These are being transformed to accommodate charging stations in addition to the traditional gas pumps.
TotalEnergies operates 750 fast-charging stations, and hopes to have nearly 4,000 by 2025. For the moment, even during the long weekends in May, few terminals are occupied in the stations, says Pierre-Emmanuel Bredin, “but the rise in power will be done,” he assures. Another challenge is to ensure the viability of the network, as many public charging points are not working or are working poorly and motorists regularly report difficulties in recharging their vehicles. But to ensure effective deployment of fast charge points, France can count on Enedis, “the fastest distribution network operator in Europe,” according to Dischamps, whose company operates in five countries across the continent. The speed of connection of the stations to the network “will condition the deployment” of the infrastructures, assures Mr. Dischamps.
