What's plugging into the grid?
The Charge
Millions of cars and the first electric lorries are a new load on the grid, and the first big one that can choose when it draws. Road transport's share of all the electricity Germany consumed: 1.25% in 2024. Where vehicles plug in, what they draw, what charging costs, and how far the charging network has got.
Ask about this section
- Why are some of the older figures marked as estimates?
- What does the EU's charging-infrastructure law (AFIR) require along main roads?
- Does a public fast-charging site make money yet?
Vehicles measured
How many electric cars, vans, lorries and buses Germany and the EU register each year and have on the road, each figure marked measured or estimated. Inside the view: Electric vehicles by powertrain.
How many new cars in Germany are battery-electric? →A figure is left blank where Eurostat and Germany's vehicle authority (KBA) disagree and no note explains why. These counts show where vehicles were registered; where they were built is not published for Europe. Method: Battery-electric share of registrations.
Charging Network measured
Germany's public charge points: how many, how fast, who runs them and where they cluster, with the EU network beneath for scale. Inside the view: The build-out · Where they are, district by district.
How many public charge points does Germany have, and how fast are they? →Public charge points on the register of Germany's grid regulator (Bundesnetzagentur), which lists completed notifications; the regulator's own count also includes pending ones and runs a little higher, and the real network is larger. EU figures are quoted from the European Alternative Fuels Observatory (EAFO). Figures under the EU's charging-infrastructure law (AFIR) are legal targets. Method: The public charge-point count.
Charging Demand measured
How much electricity road transport uses in Germany and the EU, year by year, and what share of all electricity use that is. Inside the view: Where each figure comes from.
How much of Germany's electricity do electric vehicles use? →Counted in Eurostat's energy balance; the share is calculated by Wattlas from two of its counts. Method: Road transport's share of electricity use.
The Price Jungle measured
Public charging prices, spread wide enough for the competition authority to investigate, and the one operator with audited books, which still reports a loss. Inside the view: What one audited year shows.
Why does the same kilowatt-hour cost so much more at a public charger than at home? →A cited range of published tariffs, each dated at the source; Germany's grid regulator (BNetzA) collects no tariff data. The operator figures are one listed company's audited results, and other operators may differ.
Roadmap scenario
How many battery-electric cars Germany has, how many the published projections expect by 2030, and what EU law asks of new cars from 2035. Inside the view: The EU rule for new cars from 2035 · The fleet so far.
How far is Germany from its electric-car goal? →Each projection is one scenario from one edition, shown beside the others. The 2021 coalition goal, shown for reference, was a political aim with no legal force.