Enlarge image
Fast charging stations from Ionity.
The charging network operator currently has 359 fast charging parks in operation across Europe
Photo: Gudrun Muschalla / Ionity
The fast charging station operator Ionity advertises on its homepage with a commitment: »We believe in electromobility.
To electromobility without restrictions. "
That probably sounds a bit strange to Herbert Diess. In any case, the VW boss recently gave a damning judgment on the provider. »No toilet, no coffee, one column out of order / defective, sad affair. That's anything but a premium charging experience, IONITY! «, The top manager rumbled on the online portal LinkedIn after he had problems with the provider's pillars on his electric car tour to Lake Garda. Apparently Diess was charged faster than the battery.
It is not the first time that the VW boss has taken the company more or less harshly to justice.
There may be a calculation behind this: reports that the VW brands Porsche and Audi could set up their own fast charging network were already circulating at the beginning of the year.
Volkswagen itself founded Ionity in 2017 with BMW, Daimler and Ford.
The aim was to build a powerful competitor to Tesla's superchargers.
The former Opel boss Karl-Thomas Neumann also recently criticized the fast-charging network operator.
Several pillars in Denmark were his defective or would not have connected to his Porsche Taycan, he also wrote on LinkedIn.
Two thirds of e-car drivers complain of charging problems
Diess and Neumann are by no means isolated cases with their problems.
Surveys show that around two thirds of e-car drivers have had several difficulties charging.
Especially those who dare to venture out on long journeys in an electric car in Europe are often still embarking on a little adventure.
Ionity is supposed to be part of the solution, not the problem.
The company wanted to set up 400 charging stations with up to 350 kW charging capacity along European motorways by the end of 2020.
This number has not yet been reached in late summer 2021.
359 charging stations, 103 of them in Germany, are currently in operation, 39 are under construction.
Five percent of the Ionity charging points cause problems for the company, as reported by the fast charging station operator.
The work »on technical improvements of the charging stations« as well as the toilet, drink and food supply.
How many quick chargers does it actually need?
According to the Federal Network Agency, there are currently a total of 1389 fast charging points in Germany at which electricity with more than 150 kW can be tapped.
This means that a typical battery can be filled in about half an hour or faster.
In contrast, the ADAC recorded around 14,000 filling stations for diesel and petrol in 2020.
The expansion of the charging infrastructure is to be massively promoted in the next few years.
As early as 2023, a thousand additional locations for fast chargers are to be created through federal funding.
"The next fast charging station must be reachable in a few minutes," announced Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) after a fast charging law was passed in February.
But do drivers even want so many quick charging stations?
The survey by the consulting and market research company Uscale shows that more than 90 percent of e-car drivers primarily want normal charging stations in urban areas.
The respondents attach less relevance to fast chargers.
Perhaps it is also because, according to the Association of the Automotive Industry, drivers usually charge their cars at home or in company parking lots.
Hard struggle for the charging locations
On the one hand, fast charging stations are indispensable if more e-cars are registered, on the other hand, demand is weakening - these are difficult prerequisites for fast charging station operators like Ionity, which with up to € 0.79 per kilowatt hour are among the most expensive providers on the market.
At the home socket, you usually have to pay around € 0.30.
Another problem: The attractive places on the motorways that Ionity is targeting have previously been difficult to access.
Most of them were awarded by Tank & Rast GmbH, which has almost all motorway service stations and their filling stations.
"Tank & Rast single-handedly decides which of the 360 locations on German autobahns will have a charging infrastructure," complained Michiel Langezaal, CEO of the Dutch e-filling station company Fastned, in manager magazin at the beginning of the year.
In the future, the fast charging infrastructure can also be installed in unmanaged motorway parking lots.
But how comfortable is that?
Herbert Diess would not be able to get a coffee at the shop either.
For Ionity, the situation on the fast charging market is not getting any easier: Tesla boss Elon Musk announced that he would open his supercharger network to vehicles from other manufacturers by the end of the year.
Possibly this is also a reason why Diess Ionity is now making a fire again.
Not that, in the end, Tesla is always ahead when it comes to charging.
