Electric vehicles have gained increasing popularity in recent years proving to be beneficial for the environment and more cost-effective. Since more people are purchasing electric cars, the trends in electric vehicle charging have changed.
According to the Global EV Outlook (2024), there are almost ten times as many private chargers as public ones, with most owners charging at home. The reasons why people choose to charge their electric vehicles at home instead of at public chargers is different based on income and location. For people who have access to a private parking spot with the ability to charge overnight, they choose to favor those over public chargers. It comes down to the lower cost and convenience.
The availability of being able to charge at home varies based on where you live. If you live in a multi-unit complex, your chances of having access to home charging is very limited. This, in turn, leads to increasing usage of public chargers.
Different countries are seeing different sales percentages of EV cars in comparison to other cars. For example, in Norway, share of electric vehicles in new car sales is over 90%. The shares of EV owners charging at home is approximately 82%. The United Kingdom has one of the highest reported shares of home charging access at an astonishing 93%. More than half of these chargers are smart chargers. Smart chargers connect to the internet so that they may be operated remotely to optimize energy consumption. The high use of smart chargers in the UK is partially because they were the first country to release smart charge point regulations. These regulations ensure that charge points have smart functionality, allowing the charging of an electric vehicle where there is less demand on the grid, or when more renewable electricity is available. In order to assist EV users, the European Union has made changes to building regulations in order to mandate chargers, especially for people who live in apartment buildings.
In countries where the voltage of the power grid is 220V or above, electric vehicle owners can charge their vehicle at home from a regular domestic socket. However, in countries with a 100-120V, like the Unites States power grid, in order to recharge in under ten hours requires the installation of a dedicated charger. For countries that have lower availability of private parking spots, there are significant challenges to installing a private charger.
While private chargers tend to be more popular, public charging is key to spreading the use of electric vehicles. Public charging stock has increased by more than 40% in 2023, and the use of fast chargers grew immensely. In 2023, the use of fast chargers reached 55% which outpaced slow chargers. At the end of 2023, fast chargers represented over 35% of public charging stock.
As electric vehicle sales increase, public charging stations need to keep pace with those sales. However, when chargers are not managed appropriately, it can lead to a surge in peak demand. For the future, strategies to manage charging will become more necessary as EV deployment grows.
Electric heavy-duty vehicles are EV’s next growing frontier. Since these cars have a larger size in terms of both the vehicle and battery, it results in longer charging time. This ultimately creates a need for dedicated equipment to handle these heavy-duty vehicles. Progress is currently being made on a global scale to develop standards for megawatt-scale chargers, which are used to charge heavy-duty vehicles.
Overall, as electric vehicle sales increase, there are changes that need to be made for how these vehicles are charged, taking into consideration cost, efficiency, and electricity usage.
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2024/trends-in-electric-vehicle-charging
