A scooting look at electric vehicle charging infrastructures

Few people doubt that electric mobility has a key role to play in the present and future of automotives and road mobility in Spain, across Europe and much of the world.

We are in the midst of an industrial, technological and service revolution in mobility and automotive, moving towards electric, connected, shared, digitised and autonomous vehicles that will transform road traffic in a way that we have not seen for more than 120 years, when the arrival of Otto cycle engines represented the death knell of horse-drawn carriages in just over a decade.

However, the electric vehicle market remains a disruptive market, not so much from a technological perspective, which has changed little conceptually since the late nineteenth century, when cars powered by batteries were manufactured and recharged at facilities to which they were connected by means of a cable, rather socially or psychologically, in what represents a profound transformation of the types of passenger and cargo road transport.

Electric vehicles address two key issues in the world we live in. One is environmental, since, as they release zero emissions as part of their propulsion and are powered by energy from renewable sources, electric cars are an ally in achieving greater sustainability linked to the reduction of CO2 emissions and, above all, polluting particles and noise, especially in urban environments.

The other is energy, as it is the only propulsion system capable of interacting with the electricity system to help balance its demand curve, boost renewable energy, distributed generation and energy storage, three keys to achieving energy efficiency in the world we are heading towards, with increasing demand for electricity-based services.

This makes particular sense in a complex geopolitical scenario like the one we are seeing, made even more difficult by the conflict in Ukraine, which demonstrates the need, in a country like Spain, to dispense insofar as possible with imports of oil and gas from third countries, as we are a territory with plentiful native resources, such as the sun, wind and water, capable of supplying the raw material needed to power electric vehicle batteries.

Spain is an industrial country in the combustion-based automotive industry, occupying a leading position in Europe and worldwide, which is why the transformation of the vehicles manufactured towards electrification is an added difficulty when it comes to maintaining competitiveness and employment in a sector that accounts for more than 10% of GDP.

However, consideration must be given to the fact that manufacturers themselves have already made their plans to end the production of combustion vehicles, some by 2026, others by 2030 and practically all by 2035, while some manufacturers already only produce only electric vehicles.

Also from an industrial perspective, recharging infrastructures in Spain have access to important companies that manufacture all kinds of charging points for the domestic and foreign markets.

In fact, the market share of these manufacturers rises to 20% in Europe and they boast annual growth of around 50%; they are highly internationalised companies, with operating bases mainly in Europe and the United States, and a benchmark in equipment for high power recharging.

Furthermore, they offer technological and industrial leadership in convergent sectors such as renewable energies and energy storage and boast figures of 300 million euros of turnover (75% exports to Europe and the United States), according to 2022 data extracted from the Electric Mobility Yearbook 2022-2023 prepared by AEDIVE, the Business Association for the Development and Promotion of Electric Mobility.