BERLIN, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- There were more than 20,500 charging points throughout Germany at the end of July, about 52 percent more than a year ago, the German Press Agency (dpa) reported on Wednesday.
According to the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), 75 percent of the charging stations were operated by the energy industry.
"The expansion of the public charging infrastructure is keeping pace with the current market ramp-up of electric cars," Stefan Kapferer, BDEW chief executive officer (CEO), told the dpa.
Even in rural areas, there were increasing charging points for electric cars, Kapferer said.
"But we need a faster expansion of the charging infrastructure in the private sector and at workplaces. This is where most electric cars are likely to be loaded in the future," stressed Kapferer.
Another problem was that many charging point operators generally used their own systems, said Gregor Kolbe, spokesperson for transport politics at the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv).
"Due to the different providers and operators," the usability of the charging stations in Germany was still not uniform, Kolbe noted.
"This means that I can use a charging station from an operator of whom I am not a customer, but which requires special apps or a special payment system that I do not have. But the usability is still limited and that has to be changed very quickly," Kolbe added.
However, Kolbe said public charging stations were only one part of the necessary infrastructure and in 85 percent of cases, electric cars were charged at the office or at home.
The government recently decided to extend the tax advantages for company charging points and to place private journeys with electric service cars more tax-favorably than routes driven with a gasoline engine.
Kapferer admitted that there were still obstacles to expanding the private infrastructure, especially in the area of housing and tenancy law.
Germany needed a change in tenancy and home ownership law which "does not cost anything, but would bring a lot," he said.
"Especially today, it is not yet possible in Germany as a tenant to build charging infrastructure at one's own expense in a building that one has rented," Kapferer noted.
The German cabinet recently launched a billion-euro (1.12 billion U.S. dollars) package to promote e-mobility.
According to the plan, ten million electric cars as well as 500,000 electric trucks would be produced by 2030, while Germany would have 300,000 charging stations.
Figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) showed that the number of newly registered hybrid cars in Germany increased by almost 70 percent to around 103,000 vehicles in the first half of 2019.
Meanwhile, the number of newly registered fully electric cars grew by 80 percent to around 31,000 cars in the country. A total of around 1.85 million new cars were registered in the first six months of the year, the KBA indicated.
