I my EU country (Slovakia) 40% of people live in flats. In my suburb lives 25000 (95% in flats) and there is 1 charging station for 3 cars on the entire suburb. There is 0 chance to meet the goal by 2035.
In 2035, if a pro-russian party SMER promise withdrawal from EU and allows gas cars again they will have landslide victory and can start importing cheap Russian gas.
When 95% people live in flats, the density is high enough for public transport and walking to be more efficient than cars for most usages... I'm also from Slovakia, and I can clearly see here that gas cars being cheap led to public transport, biking and walking being deprioritized outside big cities... When I was a kid my family didn't have a car, it was in a town with ~40k people, we biked or walked everywhere.., 15 years later there's 3 times as much cars in that town even though its population meanwhile dropped to 35k...
Gas cars being cheap is also the reason why no-one buys electric cars here, which in turn is the reason why few charging stations exist as there's not enough demand... Also there's a huge market for used cars in Slovakia which means this won't really be that huge of a problem by 2035 as this goal is only about new cars...
It's really not that hard to build charging stations.., most public lightning lamps can accomodate a charging station for one or two cars (there are some like this in Bratislava already).., And I'm pretty sure they will be covered by some EU funding scheme sooner or later, so businesses will probably even have an incentive to build some so that they can charge for their usage...
Flats doesn't mean there's no parking, the cars still have to park somewhere, either parking garages or lots. From what I've seen most Eastern European countries have parking lots on old buildings, and often underground parking garages on new ones. In both cases adding chargers is possible with the right incentives and subsidies.
>In both cases adding chargers is possible with the right incentives and subsidies.
Incentives/subsidies may take care of the economical aspect, but the big one is the technical aspect, installing a charging point is the less relevant issue.
When you add a charging point you add (considering contemporaneity and what not) at least 1/5 or 1/4 of the nominal charging power, i.e. every 50 kW recharging point you are going to need at least 10 kW more.
When you multiply these by a "functional" (as in there are enough charging points for all the cars around[1]) number of charging points the amount of (added) electricity needed is impressive.
Besides producing it (with some zero emission method) you need to transport and distribute it, and level peaks.
[1] I have no idea of what the "enough" ratio should be but likely it is in the 1:50 - 1:100 ratio, 1 charging point every 100 cars imply 15 cars charged in 24 hours (24/7), which sounds to me very optimistic
> From what I've seen most Eastern European countries have parking lots on old buildings, and often underground parking garages on new ones.
Underground parking on new ones - correct.
Parking lots on old buildings - kind of, old buildings were built at the time when fewer people could afford cards -> much less parking spaces than cars.
25000 people. Let's say half have a car, that's 12500 cars. (An upper bound for sure).
12500 cars. Let's say 100% of them needs charging in their parking lots. (Clearly an upper bound too!)
1200 charging stations. 3 today. Let's say zero today.
2023-2035 = 12 years.
That'll mean 1200/200 = 100 chargers installed PER YEAR.
If you think your suburb can't install 100 chargers PER YEAR you should flee the country, because that's quite bad. A competent electrician can install 2 to 4 of these chargers for standalone housing PER DAY. I know because my company is in this business! (https://dryft.se)
> A competent electrician can install 2 to 4 of these chargers for standalone housing PER DAY. I know because my company is in this business!
Surely you know then that the hard part is not wiring up a connector and attaching it to the wall, assuming there was enough capacity in the existing wiring. No doubt 2-4 of those can be done in a day.
When you have to tear down the sidwalks and underground utilities to increase capacity, it takes a bit longer.
Tesla built one of their charging stations not too far from here, it has maybe 6 to 8 charging spots. Putting up the posts with the cables took just a few days. But the whole project took about six months with the sidewalks and parking lot torn up!
The title is incorrect - this isn't phasing out gas cars entirely by 2035, it's stopping sales of _new_ gas cars. Once all new cars are electric, that'll create a slow switchover over the following decade or two.
With all major automotive OEMs switching to electric anyways, regardless of what the EU says, cars will not be the only thing getting more expensive after leaving the EU. GB serves as a great example of the degree something like Brexit can screw up a whole economy.
In Germany new residential buildings have to be built with parking space for the residents, and I now often see those either having chargers or being planned with the later addition of chargers in mind. Condo buyers also see this as a selling point, so there is market pressure (not sure how this looks on the landlord/tenant side yet).
But we have lots of residential buildings from the 50s and 60s still used, so it will take a couple decades for that to really have the required effect. My guess is that parking spaces with chargers will become a differentiator for shops and employers within the next 15 years.
Conveniently Slovakia is small enough to make it possible to improve already well-functioning public transport to eliminate most personal reasons to use a car. What's lacking is money and political ambitions.
In 2035, if a pro-russian party SMER promise withdrawal from EU and allows gas cars again they will have landslide victory and can start importing cheap Russian gas.