According to a LinkedIn article by Roy Williamson, VP Advanced Mobility at BP, "...an estimated 80% of all EV charging in the country [China] expected be done away from home by 2030 – at destinations such as public or shopping mall car parks, at forecourts or fleet hubs."
At a glance, this forecast may seem to contradict the trends we see in the Nordics and the EU, as reflected in a study by Transport & Environment, "despite the considerable emphasis on the importance placed on public recharging to drive EV acceptance, the data shows that public chargers are only used for about 5% of charging events."
Will the trend away from home and towards public charging take place in Europe as well as China? Morgan Lind, Business Manager for Operational Excellence at Fortum Charge & Drive, comments:
"Charging habits change naturally with battery size. With larger batteries the need for ad-hoc charging services decreases significantly. With the first generation of modern era EVs (Leaf 24 kWh, e-Golf, etc) the small batteries require a lot of ad-hoc services and massive public network. You see a totally different behavior with larger batteries, and our opposite experience the China forecast is due to this. A market where second and third generation cars are introduced directly will have different needs than what we have had in the past; much like Tesla owners have had it since 2013. An efficient, high-power network for long distance, and the all other charging happens at home or a destination. The need for charging during a trip becomes more rare, and we can already see the trend in the Norwegian market with the introduction of Kona, i-Pace etc. The number of sessions may decrease, but the amount of energy stays the same or increases due to fewer, but longer, charging sessions."