How, where and in what time are the key questions when it comes to charging an electric car. The infrastructure is growing, but there are still problems to be resolved.
The four cornerstones on which the development of the electric car rests are range, purchase cost, charging times and charging infrastructure. And it is in this direction that 35 of the 73 billion euros of investment that the Volkswagen Group has decided to allocate through the Planning round 69 — the planning framework for the German giant's future — are headed.
This is a very significant sum, which will accelerate a process that has already been under way for some time, including in Italy. In our country, for example, the Volkswagen Group is involved in the Eva+ project (Electric Vehicles Arteries), an initiative coordinated by Enel and co-funded by the European Commission as part of the broader plan known as the "Connecting Europe Facility". The result: by September 2019, all 200 of the planned 50 kW charging stations were already up and running, amounting to 400 charging points available along the main long-distance roads in Italy and Austria.
From the general to the particular, Audi is working tirelessly to make life easier for those who choose e-tron, its first electric car: for the e-tron 55 quattro and e-tron Sportback 55 quattro it has just made available alternating current (AC) charging at 22 kW, to top up as quickly as possible from the most widely available charging posts (in addition to the option of charging on direct current at 150 kW). Audi — on the basis that 80 per cent of charging takes place in the driver's own garage or parking space — has also recently launched Ready for e-tron home, the package that includes a home survey, advice on increasing the electrical capacity of the home system, preparation of the charging setup, and the option to choose the Enel X JuiceBox with integrated cable in three different alternating current (AC) power configurations: 7.4 kW single-phase, 11 or 22 kW three-phase. And for those who are even more mindful of environmental sustainability, Audi offers a similar advisory service in partnership, this time with Alpiq and Agn Energia, whose electricity comes exclusively from renewable sources.
The efforts of individual automotive groups, however important and large-scale, cannot disregard the contribution of the public sector. And while it is true that Italy has a fairly significant lag to make up compared to, for example, the Netherlands and Germany, it is also true that in recent years things have moved forward — considerably so. Consider that, according to the latest survey by Motus-E, relating to February 2020, Italy has 13,721 charging points (of all types: from the slowest to the fastest) across 7,203 publicly accessible stations; at the end of September 2019 there were 5,246 stations and 10,647 charging points.
What does remain, however, is a stark divide between northern and southern Italy. The five regions of central and northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont, Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto) together account for 50 per cent of the total number of charging infrastructures in Italy. In first place is Lombardy, with 18 per cent of the country's stations (2,467 points, compared with 1,730 recorded in September 2019). The situation by macro-area in terms of charging posts is as follows: 2,255 in the north-west; 2,927 in the north-east; 1,420 in the centre; 341 in the south and 181 on the islands. Another shortcoming for Italy is the still-low spread of infrastructure at service areas and along motorways, which in some cases limits the possibility of using an electric vehicle outside urban routes as well.