At the end of the first half of the year, there were already 2,818 public charging points available in Slovakia, allowing drivers to charge their EVs at a total of 1,117 locations. Interest in electrified transport has been growing intensively in recent months and reliable infrastructure is one of the necessary conditions for its further development. However, the availability of public charging is already one of the best in Europe, given the number of EVs on Slovak roads.
“The traditional dilemma of whether chargers or EVs should be on the roads first has been solved in Slovakia for now,” says Patrik Križanský, director of the Slovak Electromobility Association (SEVA), adding: “The public charging points that are already installed today could easily serve four to five times the current number of electric cars on Slovak roads.”
Another impetus for the development of electro-mobility will be the construction of ultra-fast charging parks along motorways, which will significantly help the comfort of EV drivers on longer journeys. The results of the tender in which operators competed for concessions to operate charging stations along TEN-T corridors should be announced in the coming weeks. The project involves the construction of 35 charging parks with a total of 251 charging points, 32 of which will be specifically designed for freight transport. They should be operational by the middle of next year.
According to SEVA, the total number of points is 2,818:
- 1,691 AC (up to 22 kW),
- 605 DC (50 kW),
- 442 DC (150 kW),
- 80 DC (350 kW).
The installed capacity of public stations totalled 162 MW.
Current challenges and the future of electromobility
The construction of public charging stations is a technological and organisational challenge for any operator, and the state could make the whole process much simpler and faster – if it wanted to. “SEVA has long pointed out, for example, the problematic construction procedure for building charging stations. The permitting process is unnecessarily lengthy, complicated, and the guidelines are often contradictory because the regulations are fragmented between the Energy Act, the Building Act, the Fire Brigade Ordinance, and other regulations,” explains Krizhansky. SEVA therefore also supports the conclusions of a recent SAO report that Slovakia lacks central coordination and a leader for electro-mobility, able to effectively align the interests of the ministries of economy, environment, transport and digitalisation.
“But the main cause of stagnation is the lack of ambition and consistency in public policy-making. We often encounter mistrust towards electromobility or simply disinterest. Meanwhile, electromobility and related technologies are developing faster than many ministries are able to react, which negatively affects the quality of both the legislative and regulatory framework. If this does not change, we will continue to lose investment, jobs and miss our chance as a country to become a significant part of the new era of mobility,” concludes SEVA Director Patrik Križanský.