Produced by consulting firm McKinsey and Company, the whitepaper, titled “European Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Masterplan,” states up to 6.8 million public charging points would be required across the EU by 2030 to reach the proposed 55% CO2 reduction for passenger cars.

According to ACEA, “this figure is almost twice that put forward by the European Commission in its Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) proposal, now under negotiation in the European Parliament and Council.”

ACEA, which represents the 16 major Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers, points to the tenfold increase in electrically-chargeable cars over the past five years while the number of chargers in the EU grew by 2.5 times over the same period.

To accommodate the growing market for electrically chargeable vehicles, up to 14,000 public charging points on average need to be installed each week, according to the report.

“The transition to zero is a long-term race,” stated ACEA President and CEO of BMW Group Oliver Zipse. “The key challenge now is to convince all member states to pick up the pace in deploying the required infrastructure. We absolutely need an ambitious conclusion of the AFIR proposal, both in terms of its timing and the targets it sets for each EU country.”

The research paper estimates the annual costs for public charging infrastructure at €8 billion – around 16% of investment into 5G and high-speed internet networks.

According to the research paper, trucks will require 279,000 charging points by 2030, of which 84% will be in fleet hubs. The remaining charging points will be predominantly public, fast along-highway (36,000) and public overnight charging points (9,000).

Copies of the complete report are available on the ACA site.