BMW Says EVs Won’t Take Off Until There Are Enough Charging Stations

BMW believes it is crucial that electric vehicle charging infrastructure improves if EVs are to really take off.

Speaking with Innovation Origins, director of global research cooperation at BMW, Stephan Neugebauer, said that the European Union needs to invest more in charging infrastructure across the Old Continent.

“No one will buy an electric car if you can’t charge it near your work or home. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “That is why we must continue our partnership with the European Union. Except that we no longer need to focus solely on the actual development of the car itself, as has been mainly the case in recent years. We should focus on cooperation with others, like energy companies and municipalities.”

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Neugebauer also believes that more needs to be done to grow the number of fast-charging stations to ensure charging up an electric vehicle is just as easy as charging a mobile phone: “You just have to be able to drive somewhere and stick the plug into a socket so that you can charge a car. That’s my vision for the future.”

Growing charging infrastructure won’t just require car manufacturers’ work with governments but also various other stakeholder organizations including those providing digital services and energy companies. Neugebauer says the European Union should pay for such efforts under its €100 billion research and innovation programme dubbed ‘Horizon Europe.’

BMW, alongside other automakers including Daimler, has invested heavily in ChargePoint to accelerate the deployment of charging stations around the world. ChargePoint intends on deploying 2.5 million electric vehicle charge points by 2025.