Stuttgart, 22/10/2024

Charging Services Study 2024

Charging Services Study 2024 shows significant shifts in the German charging market: Customers react to new „charging tariff jungle“.

The expansion of the public charging infrastructure for electric cars is making rapid progress. More and more charging parks and charging points are making the German charging network better and denser. At the same time, charging prices are rising at many public charging points. This is due to rising roaming fees. Customers are annoyed by this unregulated additional burden and are turning to the large providers with their own charging network. The change resembles a tectonic plate shift.

Stuttgart, 22/10/24. High roaming fees put a damper on low-cost charging. If an EV driver has a charging contract and wants to charge with other provider while travelling, he or she often has to dig deep into the own pockets. This is due to roaming fees levied by charging network operators as soon as a customer uses a contract that does not belong to their own network. Customers react to this indirect price increase and switch providers. This is shown by the new Charging Services Study 2024 by the market research company USCALE.

The survey revealed that EV drivers who charge publicly use an average of 3.5 charging cards, charging apps or contracts. The number decreased in recent years (with an interruption in the first year of the war in Ukraine) and is now increasing again. Anyone who wants to charge at affordable prices across the entire public charging network must therefore conclude contracts with several providers again.

While EV drivers used to opt for providers that offered access to several 100,000 charging points in Europe at a standard price, they are now more likely to choose providers with their own charging network that is as large as possible. They find this with operators known as charge point operators (CPOs), such as EnBW (21% market share), ARAL pulse (10%) or IONITY (9%). Tesla’s Supercharger network also plays in the premier league: It has a market share of 76% among Tesla drivers and 5% among non-Tesla drivers.

Charging service providers, the so-called eMobility Service Providers (eMSPs), which only offer access to don’t have an own charging network, are coming under pressure due to the roaming fees associated with each charging process. In addition to pure roaming providers such as Chargemap or Plugsurfing, almost all car manufacturers belong to this group. Their market share has fallen significantly in the last year (except for Tesla, with its own Supercharger network). Car manufacturers and importers must therefore ask themselves whether the charging business is economically viable and necessary for them in the long term.

The second reason for the shift of users towards CPO providers lies in cooperations. For example, ARAL pulse was able to gain half of its customers through a cooperation with ADAC. Car manufacturers are also increasingly focussing on cooperations with large providers instead of developing their own charging services. Examples include Hyundai’s co-operation with ARAL and BYD’s with Shell.

The third reason for the shift among charging service providers lies in the new user groups that are now switching to electric cars. While first-generation EV drivers use several, even small providers with specific advantages, the next generation of EV drivers tends to choose well-known providers with a large supply network.

Unlike mobile communications, roaming in the charging market is not yet regulated. The price differences are now the cause of political petitions complaining that the EU’s Charging Point Regulation and AFIR regulation alone do not offer sufficient customer protection. Critics recognise a new charging jungle in the current developments, which is also slowing down the adoption of electromobility in Germany.

For the study, USCALE surveyed a total of 2,688 EV drivers who use the public charging network in Germany in September 2024. The study describes the German charging market and the background to the charging behaviour and charging decisions of EV drivers in Germany. The study was conducted for the sixth time and is offered to interested companies for licence purchase under the title ‘eMSP/CPO Charging Services Study’.

Quote.

Dr. Axel Sprenger, Founder and Managing Director of USCALE GmbH:

‘We are observing an earthquake in the charging provider market. The high roaming charges have increased the lack of transparency and the charging prices. This not only makes charging more expensive for electric car drivers, but also much less convenient for anyone who wants to avoid the high roaming charges. Customers are reacting and are more likely to go to the large providers. With the emerging concentration, the charging market is moving towards an oligopolistic structure, as we know it from petrol stations.’

You can find the press handout with graphics HERE.
You can find an overview of all programme content HERE.
You can find a picture of Axel Sprenger HERE

Company Abstract

USCALE is a consulting and market research company for electromobility based in Stuttgart. USCALE’s work is based on customer insights studies on all touchpoints of the e-mobility customer journey. USCALE is the only provider to have a panel specialising in e-mobility with over 10,000 panellists in German-speaking countries. Through its surveys, USCALE makes the customer perspective tangible for managers, developers and service providers in the operational business.

Contact

USCALE GmbH, Silberburgstraße 112, 70176 Stuttgart, +49 711 620014-0, kontakt@uscale.digital