Charging infrastructure crucial for electric vehicles

Leaseurope recently shared our views on this topic with MEP Ertug in a virtual mini hearing on his draft proposal for the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation. Access to shared mobility electric vehicles (EV) has a critical role to play over the coming years since many citizens and businesses, especially SMEs, will not be in a position to acquire an EV or a fleet of EVs for some time yet - for cost reasons.

In our engagement with Mr Ertug, we stressed that a good EV experience through Leaseurope member services is likely to be an important accelerator of EV uptake. In fact, our members (leasing and car rental firms) are already the largest acquirers of electric vehicles in Europe, both with regards to full battery electric (BEV) as well as plug-in hybrids (PHEV). As such, they have already helped hundreds of thousands of customers across the continent to make the jump to zero-emission mobility. This means that they have a unique perspective on the market conditions required to sustainably increase EV uptake in Europe.

We underlined the need to address different aspects of zero-emission mobility such as range anxiety, adequate infrastructure, a consumer-friendly charging experience, sufficient vehicle supply and grid capacity. Charging infrastructure targets should match ambitions for electric fleets and we asked Mr. Ertug to support doubling of the urban node deployment target and public charging infrastructure in mobility hubs. Finally, we stressed the importance of secure, open and non-discriminatory provision of charging data to both consumers and mobility providers, including from charging infrastructure and the vehicle itself, to ensure a level-playing field in the development of new and innovative EV-based mobility services.