Electric car charging stations rise to 7.3 million around the world

Charging stations around the world have significantly increased (Image Credit: Tesla)

Electric car charging points are on the rise around the world, and a new report details just how rapidly they’re growing. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recently published the 2020 EV Outlook report analyzes a number of crucial data points related to electric vehicle adoption, such as charging infrastructure.

Usually, charging infrastructures have been described as the ‘chicken or egg’ issue for electric cars: electric cars won’t increase in popularity until charging is available, and charging won’t be provided until electric cars are popular. However, it’s not as problematic as originally thought since electric vehicles can be plugged into a standard electric socket, but it will charge slowly.

As of today, there are hundreds of millions of electric vehicle charge points around the world that help to start EV adoption. With that in mind, dedicated EV charge points are very crucial to speed up EV adoption by making it more convenient for the owners.

According to the IEA report, there are around 7.3 million chargers around the world. However, the majority of them are privately owned in homes, multi-dwelling buildings and workplaces:

“The infrastructure for electric-vehicle charging continues to expand. In 2019, there were about 7.3 million chargers worldwide, of which about 6.5 million were private, light-duty vehicle slow chargers in homes, multi-dwelling buildings and workplaces. Convenience, cost-effectiveness and a variety of support policies (such as preferential rates, equipment purchase incentives, and rebates) are the main drivers for the prevalence of private charging.”

Charge points such as these allow faster overnight charging for electric cars. Additionally, the report details how public charging stations have increased around the world, which grew 60% last year: “Publicly accessible chargers accounted for 12% of global light-duty vehicle chargers in 2019, most of which are slow chargers. Globally, the number of publicly accessible chargers (slow and fast) increased by 60% in 2019 compared with the previous year, higher than the electric light-duty vehicle stock growth.”

The report also states that China, the world’s largest market for EVs, is in the lead when it comes to charging infrastructure. In 2019, electric car sales topped 2.1 million globally, surpassing 2018 sales. Electric cars also registered a 40% year-on-year increase.

Electric car sales have significantly increased after being put on commercial markets in the first half of the decade. At the start, only 17,000 electric cars were on the road around the world in 2010. That number skyrocketed to 7.2 million by 2019, 47% of which were in China. 100,000 electric cars were on the road in over nine countries, and 20 countries had market shares above 1%. More information relating to electric car sales can be found on the chart posted by IEA.

The Tesla Semi will start preparing for volume production Elon Musk stated in an email to Tesla staff members. (Image Credit: Tesla)

In a memo to Tesla’s employees, Elon Musk stated that the company would start preparing its Semi commercial truck for “volume production.” Musk did not say precisely when the Semi will begin production.

“It’s time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production. It’s been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design,” Musk said in the memo. “Production of the battery and powertrain would take place at Giga Nevada, with most of the other work probably occurring in other states.”

Tesla unveiled the Semi in 2017, intending to deliver the trucks to customers in 2019, but in its 2019 third-quarter earnings report, Tesla stated the Semi would arrive in 2021 instead. Starting production now will allow the company to reach that goal.

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