Network of public terminals: where are we?

In two years, France has caught up with the objectives announced for public terminals, and the network of charging points continues to expand.

That being said, beyond the figure of the number of public terminalswhat is the state of the infrastructure? State of play.

The milestone of 150,000 public terminals reached

Good news for owners of “connected” cars! To date, there are approximately 150,000 public charging points on the territory, which makes our network the second largest in Europe (behind the Netherlands and neck and neck with Germany). Certainly, France has fallen far behind on the first target, since the threshold of 100,000 public terminals, repeatedly postponed and expected for 2020, was only reached in April 2023.
However, the pace of installations has accelerated since 2022, so that their number has almost doubled in less than two years. And despite a market that is slipping – sales of electric cars having notably collapsed in August – the maintenance of the European plan to ban the sale of new thermal vehicles in 2035 requires the government to keep its commitment. With a new objective: 400,000 public outlets by 2027. Just that.
While waiting to see if it will be held, what about the current installations? According to the barometer published in mid-September by Avere (National Association for the Development of Electric Mobility) and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the share of fast terminals (at least 50 kW) and ultrarapides (at least 150 kW) is growing faster than that of slower sockets, since the latter now represent 16% of the contingent compared to 7% at the end of 2022.

More operational fast terminals

Furthermore, the most powerful of them are also the most operational. In fact, the few 9,000 fast terminals and 15,000 ultra-fast terminals are respectively available – that is to say neither in maintenance nor out of service – 87% and 85% of the time. That’s 10 points more than last year. On the other hand, the dark point of this assessment is that the terminals delivering up to 22 kW, which represent the bulk of the troops, are only in working order 78% of the time. In question? A priori older installations, not brought up to date, but also the lack of maintenance on the first charging stations (poorly) deployed in territorial areas where they are little used.
Precisely, to better understand the problem, in addition to its barometer of charging infrastructures open to the public, Avere plans to now publish “more precise” indicatorsin order to analyze places where they are poorly available. The goal, according to Clément Molizon, General Delegate of the association, is to achieve “a normal rate of 95% availability”.
Another project: prices, still as disparate. At the start of the year, the authorities announced that they were working on the emergence of a official price comparisonlike what exists for fuel. The objective being that all operators regularly communicate the prices charged at each terminal.

Except that the late appointment of the new government caused its launch to be delayed.