Electric car, Norwegian electric car association | Big change for Norwegian electric drivers

– Last Easter there were reports that some had experienced frustration and despair in the loading queue. We can probably get reports on that again, says general secretary Christina Bu of the Electric Vehicle Association.

– But there are probably fewer and fewer people experiencing frustration with charging, and the actual time in a possible queue will probably also be shorter.

Bu goes on to say that there are currently 8,111 fast chargers in Norway.

Fewer in the charging queue

The annual Elbilisten survey, carried out by the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, shows that 42 per cent state that they have experienced charging queues occasionally, or often. That is 11 percentage points fewer than the previous year.

There are also fewer people who have experienced a long time in a charging queue. 26 percent say they have stood in a queue for more than ten minutes. Last year, 37 percent reported the same.

According to the survey, 90 percent have used fast charging in the past year.

– We can’t get out of all the charging queues, but when the electric cars go further and there are fewer payment problems because you can use a card, then it will also be better on the big departure days.

This is also what communications manager Stian Mathisen in Recharge told Nettavisen at the end of March:

– Before, queuing was a bigger challenge, and several people who drove electric cars on long trips four or five years ago probably experienced having to wait for an available charger, especially at the most popular stations.

– Now there is almost never a queue, with the exception of the busiest hours on typical departure days such as the Easter and Christmas holidays.

Small summer queue

– The survey was carried out outside the “high season”, how do you think it will look this summer?

– It is carried out outside the “high season”, but it is probably during the Easter, autumn and Christmas holidays that most people travel on the same day, and it is thus during these periods that there is a high season for queuing, says Bu.

Last summer, the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association conducted another survey, which confirmed fewer queues during the summer holidays.

Only 24 percent experienced queues occasionally, or more often. 32 percent rarely experienced a charging queue, and 43 percent never experienced it.

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Costs more

NAF said earlier in April that fast charging the electric car cost as much as filling the tank of a diesel car.

– With today’s price level for rapid charging, it is just as expensive to charge an electric car as it is to fill up a diesel car, said Nils Sødal, senior communications advisor at NAF in a press release.

Mathisen explained that the reasons for the big difference between charging at home and at fast chargers are many and complex. Network rental for charging with high power is more expensive, at the same time there are costs for the purchase, installation and maintenance of the chargers.

– The price for installing, operating and maintaining a lightning charger can be 50 times higher (than at home, journal note).