Are Roads Ready For Electric Vehicles?

The electric vehicle (EV) market is booming and widespread adoption of EVs is critical if countries are to realise their climate ambitions. But every new EV on the road increases the demand for convenient, affordable charging. The Energy Podcast investigates how the world is meeting this infrastructure challenge. Presented by Julia Streets. Featuring Elizabeth Connelly of the International Energy Agency, Lucie Mattera from ChargeUP Europe, Ingrid Malmgren of Plug In America and Shell’s Istvan Kapitany. The Energy Podcast is a Fresh Air Production for Shell, produced by Annie Day and Sarah Moore, and edited by Molly Lynch and Sophie Curtis.

TRANSCRIPT Shell The Energy Podcast Season 4, Episode 3 00:00 Julia Streets: Today on The Energy Podcast….. MUSIC BED COMES IN Istvan Kapitany: When this is becoming really the global way of mobility, finally, we really need to be sorting out public charging. Ingrid Malmgren: Through deliberate planning and innovation and organic growth, we're going to have chargers where we need them, when we need them, and we'll have a cleaner, more sustainable equitable transportation system. 00:29 Julia Streets: There can be little denial that the electric vehicle revolution is upon us. According to the International Energy Agency, sales of Electric Vehicles, or EVs, exceeded 10 million worldwide in 2022, and the global market is predicted to grow even further this year. This is good news for the nations relying on widespread adoption of EVs in helping them to realize their climate ambitions. If global carbon emissions are to reach net zero by 2050 in line with the Paris Agreement, there will need to be 300 million EVs on the road by the end of this decade. Such rapid growth intensifies the need for EV infrastructure, namely access to reliable, affordable charging. Ensuring that EVs match the cost and convenience of running a conventional fuel vehicle is crucial, not just for existing owners, but also in convincing more drivers to make the switch. Governments and businesses across the world are grappling with the infrastructure challenge created by the EV boom with varying degrees of success. Hello, I'm Julia Streets, and today on The Energy Podcast we ask, are roads ready for EVs? MUSIC ENDS With me to discuss this are Elizabeth Connelly, transport analyst at the International Energy Agency. Lucie Mattera, Secretary General of the infrastructure industry association, ChargeUp Europe. Ingrid Malmgren, policy director at Plug In America, and Shell's Executive Vice President for Mobility, Istvan Kapitany. I'm delighted that you're all with me today. Elizabeth, when you think about EV infrastructure, what's the global outlook? 02:16 Elizabeth Connelly: One thing to note about charging infrastructure right now is that most charging of electric cars occurs at homes, but a lot of the attention is around public charging, of course, because this helps enable people to own EVs that don't have access to home charging. Looking at the picture today, worldwide there are about we estimate 17 million home chargers for electric vehicles and that's compared to about three million public EV chargers. In terms of who's leading the way with charging infrastructure, I don't want to say any one country is doing better or worse, because I think it really depends a lot on the setup of homes and whether people are living in detached homes or in multi- unit dwellings. So for example, in the US I think around 80% of EV owners live in single family homes and so it's really easy to charge at home and there's less pressure for there to be public charging infrastructure, at least in these early stages. While on the other hand, in China only about 50% of charging occurs at home. So I think there are factors that make it very different across different regions around what is the right level of public charging infrastructure. For example, China accounted for 50% of electric light duty vehicles last year but 65% of the publ