More charging points right on major routes, higher power and less uncertainty when planning a journey. Slovakia has gained a new generation of motorway charging hubs, improving conditions for electric car drivers while opening up opportunities for electric freight transport. The national project, comprising more than 250 charging points, has reached its final phase. The Slovak Electric Vehicle Association (SEVA) has been involved in its preparation from the very beginning: it advocated the inclusion of infrastructure in the Recovery and Resilience Plan and developed expert recommendations to ensure that the outcome would be not just new chargers, but a high-quality service for drivers.
Motorway charging is about more than the number of charging points in national statistics. What matters is whether they are in the right places, can serve several vehicles at once, and offer drivers good facilities and amenities while they charge. “This is precisely where the new motorway hubs have made a significant difference. A much stronger backbone network has been created, one that individuals, corporate fleets and transport operators can rely on,” explains SEVA Director Patrik Križanský. This new form of motorway charging is the result of years of preparation, technical discussions and cooperation between the public and private sectors.
Longer journeys with less uncertainty
For a family travelling on holiday or a sales representative driving between meetings, a motorway fast-charging hub offers a practical benefit: the ability to add 100 or 200 kilometres of range during a short break. Charging along major transport routes reduces the need to make a detour to find a suitable station. Several charging points at one location also provide greater capacity to serve vehicles than a standalone charger.
The national project has delivered 224 charging points for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, each rated at at least 300 kW. Almost three quarters offer power levels from 400 to 1,000 kW. This does not mean that every car will charge at that rate, or sustain it for the entire time it is plugged in. Actual charging performance also depends on the vehicle’s capabilities, the battery’s state of charge and temperature, and the station’s power management. However, high-power infrastructure allows modern electric vehicles to fulfil their potential and provides capacity for further market growth.
Ease of use is just as important as power. The project’s requirements include international roaming, ad hoc charging without mandatory registration, and electronic payments at a terminal. For drivers from Slovakia or abroad, a charging stop should be a practical part of the journey, not a test of how many apps they have installed on their phone.
SEVA was involved from the outset
The story of today’s motorway charging network began long before the construction of charging points or the opening of the first site. SEVA advocated systematic support for charging infrastructure during the initial preparation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan itself. In discussions with the ministries of finance and economy, it provided expert input on issues such as current and future charging demand, available technologies and the budget required. We reported on several months of cooperation with the ministries back in April 2021, following the government’s approval of the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
This was followed by several years of detailed work on how the motorway charging backbone project should be implemented in practice. Drawing on its expertise in building and operating charging stations, SEVA submitted its recommendations to the Slovak Ministry of Economy. A key part of this work was a detailed analysis of similar projects abroad: from the outset, SEVA’s goal was to achieve European standards of infrastructure, charging services and user experience.
“From the very beginning, SEVA worked intensively to secure the best possible implementation of the national motorway charging network project. Our aim was for charging hubs to serve drivers as well as possible: to be well located, offer enough charging points and allow people to continue their journey comfortably after a short stop,” says SEVA’s director.
SEVA reported on the first hubs to open in June 2026. By the end of the third quarter, a substantial part of the network was in operation. According to information published by MH Invest on 21 October 2026, only three sites remained to be completed: Ivachnová, Sverepec and Hybe, on the right-hand side of the motorway. Their completion depended on the construction of a rest area or work on electricity distribution infrastructure.
SEVA advocated service quality and strong competition
The principles for implementing motorway hubs proposed in February 2024 illustrate the substance of this work. SEVA set out three main objectives: reliable charging and user convenience, sufficient competition between providers, and revenue for the state from concession fees. It explicitly stressed that high service quality and sufficient competition — giving drivers a wide choice of different operators along their route — should carry the greatest possible weight.
The recommendations went beyond general principles. They addressed details such as customer support, roaming, maintenance and service availability. In the technical design, SEVA considered not only the power of an individual charging point, but also the power available across an entire hub when chargers are used simultaneously. The distinction is practical: a high number on a charger alone is not enough if several cars at the site need to charge at sufficient speed at the same time. The proposal also provided for space and rules to expand hubs as demand grows.
Public support, private investment and long-term operation
The project combines public and private funding. Public resources from the Recovery and Resilience Plan financed the electricity infrastructure delivered by regional distribution companies. MH Invest was responsible for preparing and coordinating the project. Concessionaires selected through an international tender financed the charging stations themselves, their low-voltage connections to the prepared grid connection points, and their operation, maintenance and repairs. This was therefore not a model in which the state pays for all chargers and then provides charging services itself.
ZSE Drive, OMV Slovensko and ejoin were selected as concessionaires through the public tender. The concessions cover a period of 16 years, during which the operators also bear technology and demand risks. Long-term responsibility for keeping the service running is just as important as construction itself.
According to the published results of the concession tender, the annual fixed fee payable to the state amounts to approximately €1.52 million excluding VAT. This is supplemented by a variable component based on the amount of electricity sold. MH Invest estimates total revenue over the concession period at €46.1 million; this is a projection that also depends on actual use of the network.
New opportunities for electric freight transport
The project is also important for transport companies. When considering an electric truck, assessing its range and charging at the company’s own depot is not enough. An operator needs to know where it can recharge en route and how to incorporate the stop into its operating schedule. A public high-power network broadens the range of routes on which electric propulsion can be used in practice, including in heavy-duty freight transport.
As part of the national project, a total of 32 charging points rated at 400 to 1,000 kW have been brought into operation at 13 motorway rest areas for heavy-duty vehicles, including trucks and buses. Power is not the only consideration: suitable parking spaces and easy access for vehicles with trailers are also essential. SEVA’s September map already includes selected charging points with a technical power rating of up to 1,000 kW through a CCS2 connector. The vehicle itself must, of course, also support the actual charging power.
“For transport operators that have already started electrifying their fleets, it is important that any charging en route fits naturally into the driver’s planned break. Expanding the network on major routes gives operators greater certainty when planning journeys and broadens the opportunities to deploy electric trucks,” explains Patrik Križanský.
For Slovakia, this is also a matter of competitiveness. High-quality charging on TEN-T corridors — the trans-European transport network — provides support for domestic transport operators and international logistics alike. Public hubs do not replace depot charging; they complement it with opportunities to recharge en route. Electrification therefore need not remain limited to operations in which a vehicle returns to the same location after every journey.
Infrastructure ready for further growth
Motorway hubs are part of a broader change. At the end of September 2026, SEVA recorded 5,386 public charging points at 1,897 locations in Slovakia. Of these, 1,009 offered at least 150 kW. The record number of new points added in the third quarter was driven mainly by the expansion of conventional AC charging; the new motorway hubs represent a different, qualitative advance in fast charging on long-distance routes.
International comparisons demonstrated Slovakia’s strong starting position even before the new motorway hubs opened. Based on 2025 data, the European Environment Agency ranked Slovakia among the countries with the highest public charging power relative to the number of electric vehicles. According to a September 2025 study by Ricardo for the FIA European Bureau, Slovakia’s charging power amounted to almost five times the minimum required under the AFIR Regulation based on the size of its electric vehicle fleet. The corresponding figures were approximately 3.8 times in Czechia, 3.3 times in Austria, 2.8 times in Poland and 1.7 times in Hungary. On this measure, Slovakia outperformed all its European Union neighbours.
This comparison is not a ranking of motorway charging quality and also reflects the smaller number of electric vehicles on Slovak roads. It nevertheless shows that, in terms of total power, the public network has capacity for further growth in the electric vehicle fleet. When assessing the new motorway hubs, it is therefore important to consider not only the additional kilowatts, but also where they are available to drivers and how reliably their services can be used.