No wonder, the country is so small that any modern EV can drive it around completely with single charge. They also have abundance of especially wind energy, and the government recently dropped the electricity tax to EU minimum in order to make electricity very affordable for the Danish folks.
The country has also modified the tax code that any EV is ~5000 euro cheaper in acquisition costs (through tax punishment for ICE + tax advantage for EV), about ~800 euro per year cheaper (there's secondary tax measures making ICE vehicles more expensive on an ongoing basis, depends on the car, and okay, 800 would be for a very nice car), plus guaranteed public charging capacity (and of course due to charging limits these are cheap parking spaces too)
That's what it takes in 2026 to make EVs still not quite cheaper than ICE cars. I imagine the free-with-charging-at-guaranteed-low-prices parking spaces make a large difference here.
Sadly for obvious capacity reasons the cheap parking space will be only for a few years.
Unless you're living near the border I don't believe this is true. I think the willingness to drive distances is a lot higher in the US, west coast in particular, compared to Europe.
When you do live near the border, it doesn't really matter, in the Schengen area there is no border for all intents and purposes.
I don't think driving around the country is the main selling point of a car, at least not around here. Huge commutes by car are not a usual thing in my environment, au contrary, I know companies who actively push against that.
I carry groceries and sometimes (rarely) do my short commute - 30 minutes electric instead of 50 minutes in PT. Vacations by car are maybe twice a year (I always prefer PT) and then, like the other commenter said, I stop anyway at almost every highway stop for a coffer or whatever, so the fast charger can fastly charge. So for this usage model, electric is yay.
The world is in a weird prisoner’s dilemma right now. US, China, to some extent India, are pumping out CO2, and deriving a short term “co2” dividend of higher growth, unencumbered by green transition cost. Europe is somewhat trying harder to transition away, partly for “green” reasons, partly for sovereignty reasons, partly because they just outsourced their industry.
Europe is also potentially more affected by climate change than US and China, as I understand. India of course would be toast in a hotter world, but perhaps it too poor right now to do much about it easily.
But discoordinated action won’t move the dial. So should Europe continue on the green path while losing GDP share to US, China and India? Should it jump on the coal bandwagon and screw up the world since everyone else is? It’s not like green contrarian action will do much good on its own.
Plus, the US dumped the most CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place. They shat in the pool and now seem be to telling others to clean up the pool. At least we received some good entertainment content from the US in return.
My impression is that the US is more vulnerable to climate change than Europe. While Europe has heat waves, the US has a hurricane problem that simply does not exist in Europe, which can result in horrendous societal damage.
> So should Europe continue on the green path while losing GDP share to US, China and India?
So the article is about huge private EV car marketshare in Denmark, but for the whole EU the EV marketshare of passenger vehicles is around 25% right now, plus around 10% PHEV. China (a much bigger car market) is at 43% EV marketshare, and also another 20% for PHEV. They have invested much more in the passenger vehicle transition to EV than us (the EU). And they did it partly (also, of course, for other reasons) because they have seen this as an opportunity to leapfrog powerful foreign carmakers that have made or sold huge amounts of ICE cars in China and create their own independent car industry.
Which means this is clearly the wrong question. Even if somehow the EU car industry returned to making ICEs, it won't save them.
> India of course would be toast in a hotter world, but perhaps it too poor right now to do much about it easily.
Even so, their 3-wheeler market is already overwhelmingly EVs.
> But discoordinated action won’t move the dial.
And this take is incorrect too. If you have a look at the IPCC RCP scenarios, the worst (RCP8.5 I believe) has already been dropped because it's improbable because the emmission curve has been trending a bit lower as a result of our actions. China's CO2 output is peaking right about now. And we have CBAM. We have to do what's possible.
It is interesting that the big selling brands are Skoda (VW group) and VW itself, then a resurgent Tesla in third place. These are companies that are claiming hardship from Chinese EV imports and VW is planning to lay off 100K employees.
Denmark is right next to Germany, so has a high affinity for German car brands. Even with worse specs than the chinese imports, the danes feel the german brands are a higher quality a more stable producer who will be there for the long run, so service and guarantees can be trusted.
From the Netherlands - German neighbors from the other side..
Chinese cars can be superior on paper, cheaper to buy or operate. The factors on a consumer mind is
1. If something is wrong(modern cars are like beta software), will I get the support and service?
2. Will the car company exist in 5/8/10 years after my purchase? Resale value, parts for future maintenance etc.
The Chinese brands IMO are not there yet. A few years ago, Nio was very cool and tempting.. now they are winding down in Europe. There are plenty of reviews online where people struggle with service on their Chinese cars. Plus, it doesn’t help that they are dozens of brands(BYD, Xpeng, Zeekr, Cherry, Nio etc) instead of the confidence a brand like VW would instill(in the sense that your independent mechanic would know what to do if it’s VW).
Perhaps if the Chinese brands stand the test of time in a few years, we would trust them like Hyundai/Kia of today.
Thanks for keeping the lights on for my neighbors for a few more years.
However, I think BYD is there, and if weren't for the EU's Chinese EV Important tax, you could almost buy 2 BYDs (one for driving and one for spare parts /s) for the price of an equivalent VW.
I am not a car journalist and therefore have only seen 10s and not 100s/1000s of cars, but for my limited sample size: 100% of German(and most American and Japanese) car software is offensively bad.
No idea whats so hard about getting at least the performance of a 10 year old iPad in a car.
Also: If you want "German Quality", the closest you will get is by buying a Japanese/Korean car.
If money is of no concern, the Mercedes EQS might be an OK option, but they lost their stand out feature by no longer selling (giving up on?) Level 3 self-driving.
1. they are building their service network, they are taking over EU factories so they can produce cars here, it is not really anything new, it is Japan/Korea story all over, just instead of ICE it is PHEV/BEV
2. that's why you choose decades old company like BYD, Cherry (Omoda, Jaecoo) or Geely (with their sub-brands Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Volvo), I would refrain from companies like Xpeng or Nio which doesn't have strong company behind them, actually I would not be so sure either that Tesla car brand will still exist in 10 years (at least outside US)
I sure have bigger trust in future of big Chinese companies than those EU companies like VW with very uncertain future, they survived Japanese/Korean ICE invasion with big losses (my mother has Toyota, my father has like 3rd or 4th Japanese car, I think in last 30 years he had only one European brand car, because EU brands just can't compete), I am not so sure these legacy EU brands will all survive Chinese PHEV/BEV invasion, if they will survive they will be most likely acquired by Chinese like Volvo anyway.
> it's not very difficult to put some cables in the ground and install a big pre built metal box :)
But increasingly it's becoming a problem that those cables have nowhere to run to as the grid isn't capable of serving them all. There might be excess generation but unless you have the capacity in the wires to get it where it's needed you're still stuck.
Especially in dense old cuties where the grid was built when the goal was to power a bunch of incandescent light bulbs. Not all the appliances we have today let alone cars with a battery capacity equal to a household's weekly usage of electricity when the grid was designed.
The problem can be alleviated with more chargers. If every parking spot had a charger you could slow-charge with much lower pressure on the grid. 2kW over night are plenty for most people’s driving needs.
Is it really that much harder than making the magic juice that legacy cars run on? By now it is cheaper and less reliant on despots all over the world to get electricity than fuel in most of Europe I assume. Electricity is a great interface as well given the actual source of energy doesn't matter as much and is interchangeable.
I don't own a car myself, but there are public EV charging points opposite my apartment in Denmark, and some in the (small) private underground parking garage.
I have rented the pay-per-minute electric cars a few times, and have always found it easy to get a discount on the next journey by leaving it plugged into a charger.
Not in Norway. Most people live in actual houses, whether they are detached and freestanding or attached, you still have a place for your car and therefore the opportunity install a charger.
At least in the apartments I have been living in the last couple of years you can always choose to have a charger. For older buildings in e.g. Stockholm city center there could be a lack of available parking spaces in the building.
Plus neither is house ownership. I'd say there is a decent correlation between apartment living vs house and the access to public transport. At least in Europe.
The ground floor of apartment buildings in my country (not europe, india) is almost always reserved for parking. It is mandated though not uniformly followed in my city that there be 18 parking spots for my 8 house building. We follow it, and found it really easy to install EV charging ports for each one.
There are 50K public chargers in Denmark. 7K of which are fast chargers. There's no shortage of public chargers and more are deployed as demand is increasing. Also, Denmark is a small country. Most return trips inside the country would be doable on a single charge if you have one of the newer longer range vehicles. Copenhagen to Aarhus is only 300km or so. You could do that without charging in a new BMW. Mostly people charge at home or at one of those tens of thousands of roadside chargers in their neighborhood.
And of course Denmark pioneered a lot of wind technology. The country is running on cheap wind power at this point and you can get really favorable rates off peak hours.
No. And it's not the number of charging stations, it's the general shittiness of those. You never know how much you will pay per kWh, there are apps, networks, roaming agreements, cards, getting through this mess and starting to charge is always a challenge and takes a significant time (sometimes comparable to charging time!). You also get gouged on pricing, companies clearly set it so that the cost of 100km is comparable to that of a gas-powered vehicle. And for some reason people think EVs can only charge by backing into a stall, never in a drive-through bay like gasoline vehicles.
I own an EV and enjoy it a lot. I would not even consider buying a gas vehicle again. But while charging at home is great, charging during a trip is annoying. This needs regulation.
Are charging stations subsidized? That could be a good excuse to add regulations.
I've heard the subsidies are the reason why there's so many shitty charging stations. People build them, collect the subsidies, and never actually care about running it well. A silver lining is at least the space is reserved once we decide to get serious about fixing this as a society.
Charging stations just need to function like regular gas stations.
Prices need to be made available online and prominently displayed at the entrance of the station. They shouldn't allow cheaper prices for subscriptions or even blocking any access without one.
Yes, they should function like gas stations and be regulated similarly. When I approach a gas station, I see the prices usually on large signs. If not, I always see the price I am actually paying displayed on a screen. None of these things are true for an EV charging station, which I think should be regulated.
Cheaper prices with subscriptions are not a problem at all. It's just that I should always see the final price that I will be paying per kWh before starting to charge.
On a related note, there is already a plug-and-charge system that identifies the car when it gets plugged in and is capable of charging the owner, but it almost never works. This is also something that should be mandated for larger EV adoption.
In Sweden it has. When I got my EV 4 years ago, the list of public EV charging locations was about the same as the amount of petrol stations, now its 3-4x as many. And as others have mentioned, having a wall charger of your own is of course the easiest and cheapest, but fearing long distance travels with EVs in Europe is not a thing, I think.
A decent EV will let you do 300km at highway speed. Starting at 100% at home, that's 4 times a 45 minutes break every 2.5 hours, which is a good idea anyway.
I live in a town in Hungary and would never consider an EV. It is slow and costs about the same to charge as petrol, there is no infrastructure, way more expensive, value degrades more compared a simple (and clean, euro 6) diesel or petrol engine here. If I had a house with solar panels on the roof (thank you govt subsidiaries), maaaybe. I can buy a few years old compact car for 6-10k euros and use it for years with none of the infrastructure cost or battery degradation.
also it should be noted that Denmark has extremely high car registration taxes, so for instance 40K EUR worth ICE car cost after registration 73.5K EUR, while 40K EUR BEV cost after registration 40K EUR, that's really tough choice to make - either you pay 73K EUR for ICE or 40K EUR for BEV, both with same price tag in dealership + BEV has other benefits like cheaper parking etc.
if gov were to remove these artificial (B)EV tax benefits then we would really see what would people choose, but gov is completely influecing the market, so people just do what is currently beneficial for their wallet, it is for sure not due to EV being good, do you think people would buy EVs if tax rates were reversed and ICE would cost 40K EUR and BEV would cost 73K EUR?
if gov were to remove these artificial (B)EV tax benefits then we would really see what would people choose, but gov is completely influecing the market, so people just do what is currently beneficial for their wallet, it is for sure not due to EV being good, do you think people would buy EVs if tax rates were reversed and ICE would cost 40K EUR and BEV would cost 73K EUR?
Pound for pound I prefer an EV for as a daily driver (have a Hyundai Ioniq 5). Instant torque, no maintenance to speak of besides tires and windshield fluid. They are not exciting, there is no delicious noise drama. But in the US, the EVs and hybrids/PHEVs have always been, and now more so, more expensive than their ICE counterparts. Good for Denmark, hopefully that spreads here with the next admin.
One immediate downside of EVs that I often see cited in the states, is that even small accident can result in a total insurance write off of the vehicle, much more often or severe than with ICE cars. Which is kind of strange, because new ICE cars pack as much tech.
Data set of one: yes I would. I despise the stink of fumes. And generally, I see zero advantages of gas over EV - also the other way around - a car is a car, costs some, takes you from A to B, unless it's some hobby (which is not this discussion).
some sure would, but do you seriously think 97% of private buyers would rather pay 30000 EUR extra (or double the retail price) for those few BEV advantages? I really doubt that, these sales are all just tax policy and nothing to do with BEV benefits
zero ICE advantages?
1. lower price (if gov doesn't destroy market with taxes/benefits)
2. much bigger range
3. you can refill the tank in few minutes without any planning pretty much anywhere
4. you are saving the roads since ICE is usually much lighter than comparable BEV, cars should pay road tax based on their weight as main factor
5. cheaper per km expenses (vs fast chargers, half of the DK population lives in apartments)
OTOH BEV advantages:
1. better acceleration
2. quieter
3. simpler engine, so in theory less maintenance and higher longetivity
btw. you don't smell stink of your fumes, so your EV doesn't really solve this problem
I really doubt (most) people care about acceleration/noise and maintenance that much they would be willing to pay double price of the ICE and get those disadvantages
Don't get me wrong, I am fan of EVs, but under normal market conditions. Bring me Chinese EVs for Chinese price and if EV will be actually cheaper than some European ICE, then people can accept those EV disadvantages, but at current prices which are already not real thanks to gov it just doesn't make sense for someone not living in their own house with PV.
ICE arguments: 1. debatable, today it's definitely not (I don't discuss imaginary situations). 2. I don't care, I don't drive thousand km. 3. and when I do, I do highway stops anyway, where the quick charger easily catches up. 4. "should" - again imaginary argument, I'll skip. 5. My actual electric costs are exactly half than gas previously (also, fast charging can happen in garages/parking spots). EV arguments: 1. again I don't care, racing is for kids. 2. inside they're both quiet. 3. indeed in two years no engine issues yet, but the car being new surely helped.
So, like I said: to me a car is just a car. But no stink and less cost so far.
No wonder, the country is so small that any modern EV can drive it around completely with single charge. They also have abundance of especially wind energy, and the government recently dropped the electricity tax to EU minimum in order to make electricity very affordable for the Danish folks.
How often does the majority of the population need to drive around the country? I doubt it’s a major factor for the majority of people.
The country has also modified the tax code that any EV is ~5000 euro cheaper in acquisition costs (through tax punishment for ICE + tax advantage for EV), about ~800 euro per year cheaper (there's secondary tax measures making ICE vehicles more expensive on an ongoing basis, depends on the car, and okay, 800 would be for a very nice car), plus guaranteed public charging capacity (and of course due to charging limits these are cheap parking spaces too)
That's what it takes in 2026 to make EVs still not quite cheaper than ICE cars. I imagine the free-with-charging-at-guaranteed-low-prices parking spaces make a large difference here.
Sadly for obvious capacity reasons the cheap parking space will be only for a few years.
eh, this is EU people regularly and en mass do comute across borders for work.
Unless you're living near the border I don't believe this is true. I think the willingness to drive distances is a lot higher in the US, west coast in particular, compared to Europe.
When you do live near the border, it doesn't really matter, in the Schengen area there is no border for all intents and purposes.
I don't think driving around the country is the main selling point of a car, at least not around here. Huge commutes by car are not a usual thing in my environment, au contrary, I know companies who actively push against that.
If I have a car and I cannot do a weekend trip with it, why did I spend the money?
EVs are fine for weekend trips, you just have to spend a little more time taking breaks.
Plus avoid when everybody else is having a holiday trip (assuming charging stations don't have unlimited bays available)
If you have kids in school you can only have trips when everybody else is having them.
I carry groceries and sometimes (rarely) do my short commute - 30 minutes electric instead of 50 minutes in PT. Vacations by car are maybe twice a year (I always prefer PT) and then, like the other commenter said, I stop anyway at almost every highway stop for a coffer or whatever, so the fast charger can fastly charge. So for this usage model, electric is yay.
The world is in a weird prisoner’s dilemma right now. US, China, to some extent India, are pumping out CO2, and deriving a short term “co2” dividend of higher growth, unencumbered by green transition cost. Europe is somewhat trying harder to transition away, partly for “green” reasons, partly for sovereignty reasons, partly because they just outsourced their industry.
Europe is also potentially more affected by climate change than US and China, as I understand. India of course would be toast in a hotter world, but perhaps it too poor right now to do much about it easily.
But discoordinated action won’t move the dial. So should Europe continue on the green path while losing GDP share to US, China and India? Should it jump on the coal bandwagon and screw up the world since everyone else is? It’s not like green contrarian action will do much good on its own.
It’s altogether a not pretty picture…
Plus, the US dumped the most CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place. They shat in the pool and now seem be to telling others to clean up the pool. At least we received some good entertainment content from the US in return.
In fairness they’re not telling us to clean up the pool, but rather that swimming in shit is great and we should all make a nice big shitty swamp.
Not much of a consolation but I want to give credit where it’s due.
My impression is that the US is more vulnerable to climate change than Europe. While Europe has heat waves, the US has a hurricane problem that simply does not exist in Europe, which can result in horrendous societal damage.
> So should Europe continue on the green path while losing GDP share to US, China and India?
So the article is about huge private EV car marketshare in Denmark, but for the whole EU the EV marketshare of passenger vehicles is around 25% right now, plus around 10% PHEV. China (a much bigger car market) is at 43% EV marketshare, and also another 20% for PHEV. They have invested much more in the passenger vehicle transition to EV than us (the EU). And they did it partly (also, of course, for other reasons) because they have seen this as an opportunity to leapfrog powerful foreign carmakers that have made or sold huge amounts of ICE cars in China and create their own independent car industry.
Which means this is clearly the wrong question. Even if somehow the EU car industry returned to making ICEs, it won't save them.
> India of course would be toast in a hotter world, but perhaps it too poor right now to do much about it easily.
Even so, their 3-wheeler market is already overwhelmingly EVs.
> But discoordinated action won’t move the dial.
And this take is incorrect too. If you have a look at the IPCC RCP scenarios, the worst (RCP8.5 I believe) has already been dropped because it's improbable because the emmission curve has been trending a bit lower as a result of our actions. China's CO2 output is peaking right about now. And we have CBAM. We have to do what's possible.
Huh?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
It is interesting that the big selling brands are Skoda (VW group) and VW itself, then a resurgent Tesla in third place. These are companies that are claiming hardship from Chinese EV imports and VW is planning to lay off 100K employees.
Denmark is right next to Germany, so has a high affinity for German car brands. Even with worse specs than the chinese imports, the danes feel the german brands are a higher quality a more stable producer who will be there for the long run, so service and guarantees can be trusted.
From the Netherlands - German neighbors from the other side..
Chinese cars can be superior on paper, cheaper to buy or operate. The factors on a consumer mind is
1. If something is wrong(modern cars are like beta software), will I get the support and service?
2. Will the car company exist in 5/8/10 years after my purchase? Resale value, parts for future maintenance etc.
The Chinese brands IMO are not there yet. A few years ago, Nio was very cool and tempting.. now they are winding down in Europe. There are plenty of reviews online where people struggle with service on their Chinese cars. Plus, it doesn’t help that they are dozens of brands(BYD, Xpeng, Zeekr, Cherry, Nio etc) instead of the confidence a brand like VW would instill(in the sense that your independent mechanic would know what to do if it’s VW).
Perhaps if the Chinese brands stand the test of time in a few years, we would trust them like Hyundai/Kia of today.
> The Chinese brands IMO are not there yet.
Thanks for keeping the lights on for my neighbors for a few more years. However, I think BYD is there, and if weren't for the EU's Chinese EV Important tax, you could almost buy 2 BYDs (one for driving and one for spare parts /s) for the price of an equivalent VW.
I am not a car journalist and therefore have only seen 10s and not 100s/1000s of cars, but for my limited sample size: 100% of German(and most American and Japanese) car software is offensively bad. No idea whats so hard about getting at least the performance of a 10 year old iPad in a car.
Also: If you want "German Quality", the closest you will get is by buying a Japanese/Korean car. If money is of no concern, the Mercedes EQS might be an OK option, but they lost their stand out feature by no longer selling (giving up on?) Level 3 self-driving.
1. they are building their service network, they are taking over EU factories so they can produce cars here, it is not really anything new, it is Japan/Korea story all over, just instead of ICE it is PHEV/BEV
2. that's why you choose decades old company like BYD, Cherry (Omoda, Jaecoo) or Geely (with their sub-brands Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Volvo), I would refrain from companies like Xpeng or Nio which doesn't have strong company behind them, actually I would not be so sure either that Tesla car brand will still exist in 10 years (at least outside US)
I sure have bigger trust in future of big Chinese companies than those EU companies like VW with very uncertain future, they survived Japanese/Korean ICE invasion with big losses (my mother has Toyota, my father has like 3rd or 4th Japanese car, I think in last 30 years he had only one European brand car, because EU brands just can't compete), I am not so sure these legacy EU brands will all survive Chinese PHEV/BEV invasion, if they will survive they will be most likely acquired by Chinese like Volvo anyway.
Overall all long-term tests suggest they are correct and they are higher quality. They are less flashy but build is better.
Has the EV charging infrastructure kept pace with the EV adoption?
At least here in Norway it has, it seems like it's not very difficult to put some cables in the ground and install a big pre built metal box :)
Most gas stations have them and there is also a lot of street charging stations.
But it's still cheapest to charge at home.
> it's not very difficult to put some cables in the ground and install a big pre built metal box :)
But increasingly it's becoming a problem that those cables have nowhere to run to as the grid isn't capable of serving them all. There might be excess generation but unless you have the capacity in the wires to get it where it's needed you're still stuck.
Especially in dense old cuties where the grid was built when the goal was to power a bunch of incandescent light bulbs. Not all the appliances we have today let alone cars with a battery capacity equal to a household's weekly usage of electricity when the grid was designed.
The problem can be alleviated with more chargers. If every parking spot had a charger you could slow-charge with much lower pressure on the grid. 2kW over night are plenty for most people’s driving needs.
>incandescent light bulbs
which are an order of magnitude less efficient than contemporary LED lights.
Less efficient but still often having a better output over the frequency spectrum
It's much harder to make a magic juice that moves though the cables and boxes ;)
Is it really that much harder than making the magic juice that legacy cars run on? By now it is cheaper and less reliant on despots all over the world to get electricity than fuel in most of Europe I assume. Electricity is a great interface as well given the actual source of energy doesn't matter as much and is interchangeable.
Most people charge EVs at home most of the time.
roughly 47% Danish population lives in multi-dwelling apartment blocks (53% in house properties)
in Norway its roughly 25% (apartments) vs 75% (houses)
In Europe? A lot of people live in apartment buildings
I don't own a car myself, but there are public EV charging points opposite my apartment in Denmark, and some in the (small) private underground parking garage.
I have rented the pay-per-minute electric cars a few times, and have always found it easy to get a discount on the next journey by leaving it plugged into a charger.
This says there are over 50,000 charging points: https://eletric-vehicles.com/general/denmarks-public-ev-char...
Not in Norway. Most people live in actual houses, whether they are detached and freestanding or attached, you still have a place for your car and therefore the opportunity install a charger.
At least in the apartments I have been living in the last couple of years you can always choose to have a charger. For older buildings in e.g. Stockholm city center there could be a lack of available parking spaces in the building.
EV adoption is not uniformly distributed among the population.
Plus neither is house ownership. I'd say there is a decent correlation between apartment living vs house and the access to public transport. At least in Europe.
The ground floor of apartment buildings in my country (not europe, india) is almost always reserved for parking. It is mandated though not uniformly followed in my city that there be 18 parking spots for my 8 house building. We follow it, and found it really easy to install EV charging ports for each one.
There are 50K public chargers in Denmark. 7K of which are fast chargers. There's no shortage of public chargers and more are deployed as demand is increasing. Also, Denmark is a small country. Most return trips inside the country would be doable on a single charge if you have one of the newer longer range vehicles. Copenhagen to Aarhus is only 300km or so. You could do that without charging in a new BMW. Mostly people charge at home or at one of those tens of thousands of roadside chargers in their neighborhood.
And of course Denmark pioneered a lot of wind technology. The country is running on cheap wind power at this point and you can get really favorable rates off peak hours.
No. And it's not the number of charging stations, it's the general shittiness of those. You never know how much you will pay per kWh, there are apps, networks, roaming agreements, cards, getting through this mess and starting to charge is always a challenge and takes a significant time (sometimes comparable to charging time!). You also get gouged on pricing, companies clearly set it so that the cost of 100km is comparable to that of a gas-powered vehicle. And for some reason people think EVs can only charge by backing into a stall, never in a drive-through bay like gasoline vehicles.
I own an EV and enjoy it a lot. I would not even consider buying a gas vehicle again. But while charging at home is great, charging during a trip is annoying. This needs regulation.
Are charging stations subsidized? That could be a good excuse to add regulations.
I've heard the subsidies are the reason why there's so many shitty charging stations. People build them, collect the subsidies, and never actually care about running it well. A silver lining is at least the space is reserved once we decide to get serious about fixing this as a society.
Charging stations just need to function like regular gas stations.
Prices need to be made available online and prominently displayed at the entrance of the station. They shouldn't allow cheaper prices for subscriptions or even blocking any access without one.
Yes, they should function like gas stations and be regulated similarly. When I approach a gas station, I see the prices usually on large signs. If not, I always see the price I am actually paying displayed on a screen. None of these things are true for an EV charging station, which I think should be regulated.
Cheaper prices with subscriptions are not a problem at all. It's just that I should always see the final price that I will be paying per kWh before starting to charge.
On a related note, there is already a plug-and-charge system that identifies the car when it gets plugged in and is capable of charging the owner, but it almost never works. This is also something that should be mandated for larger EV adoption.
Gas stations do have cheaper prices for subscriptions often.
In Sweden it has. When I got my EV 4 years ago, the list of public EV charging locations was about the same as the amount of petrol stations, now its 3-4x as many. And as others have mentioned, having a wall charger of your own is of course the easiest and cheapest, but fearing long distance travels with EVs in Europe is not a thing, I think.
Try driving 1300km in a day… When I was a kid that's how our family vacations started.
A decent EV will let you do 300km at highway speed. Starting at 100% at home, that's 4 times a 45 minutes break every 2.5 hours, which is a good idea anyway.
Bear in mind relatively few people globally did that.
We're all special, each in our own unique way.
In another news the sales of +10 years old diesel cars are not dropping in Romania and Bulgaria and Hungary and the Balkan countries
New diesel vehicles are 6.4% of sales in Romania, 15.4% in Bulgaria, 9.5% in Hungary, 12.2% in Croatia.
That's a drop except in Bulgaria, where it's the same as last year.
And if those 10+ year old diesels are replacing 15, 20+ year old diesels it's still an improvement.
https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
How are diesel cars with a battery counted?
Cars under VAG sell TDI engines with a small battery and call it a hybrid.
pretty much no brands with any relevant sales in Europe besides Mercedes and Mazda produce diesel hybrids
Audi sells 48V diesel mild hybrids, at least where I’m from they make the majority of their sales.
The supply of 10+ year old EVs is rather limited, so that is not a very surprising fact.
Chinese EVs are making rapid inroads in the balkans, lots of new brands
True, I see lots of Teslas and BYDs here in Greece (and own a BYD). Wouldn't go back to ICE.
I live in a town in Hungary and would never consider an EV. It is slow and costs about the same to charge as petrol, there is no infrastructure, way more expensive, value degrades more compared a simple (and clean, euro 6) diesel or petrol engine here. If I had a house with solar panels on the roof (thank you govt subsidiaries), maaaybe. I can buy a few years old compact car for 6-10k euros and use it for years with none of the infrastructure cost or battery degradation.
> value degrades more compared a simple (and clean, euro 6) diesel or petrol engine here
why not buy a used EV then?
Mr. Trump unexpectedly, successfully promoted EV around the world!
it is hidden behind paywall, here no paywall and in English
https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/04/denmark-evs-account-for...
also it should be noted that Denmark has extremely high car registration taxes, so for instance 40K EUR worth ICE car cost after registration 73.5K EUR, while 40K EUR BEV cost after registration 40K EUR, that's really tough choice to make - either you pay 73K EUR for ICE or 40K EUR for BEV, both with same price tag in dealership + BEV has other benefits like cheaper parking etc.
if gov were to remove these artificial (B)EV tax benefits then we would really see what would people choose, but gov is completely influecing the market, so people just do what is currently beneficial for their wallet, it is for sure not due to EV being good, do you think people would buy EVs if tax rates were reversed and ICE would cost 40K EUR and BEV would cost 73K EUR?
if gov were to remove these artificial (B)EV tax benefits then we would really see what would people choose, but gov is completely influecing the market, so people just do what is currently beneficial for their wallet, it is for sure not due to EV being good, do you think people would buy EVs if tax rates were reversed and ICE would cost 40K EUR and BEV would cost 73K EUR?
Pound for pound I prefer an EV for as a daily driver (have a Hyundai Ioniq 5). Instant torque, no maintenance to speak of besides tires and windshield fluid. They are not exciting, there is no delicious noise drama. But in the US, the EVs and hybrids/PHEVs have always been, and now more so, more expensive than their ICE counterparts. Good for Denmark, hopefully that spreads here with the next admin.
One immediate downside of EVs that I often see cited in the states, is that even small accident can result in a total insurance write off of the vehicle, much more often or severe than with ICE cars. Which is kind of strange, because new ICE cars pack as much tech.
Maybe that's a fair price for the externalities of fossil fuels.
Data set of one: yes I would. I despise the stink of fumes. And generally, I see zero advantages of gas over EV - also the other way around - a car is a car, costs some, takes you from A to B, unless it's some hobby (which is not this discussion).
some sure would, but do you seriously think 97% of private buyers would rather pay 30000 EUR extra (or double the retail price) for those few BEV advantages? I really doubt that, these sales are all just tax policy and nothing to do with BEV benefits
zero ICE advantages?
1. lower price (if gov doesn't destroy market with taxes/benefits)
2. much bigger range
3. you can refill the tank in few minutes without any planning pretty much anywhere
4. you are saving the roads since ICE is usually much lighter than comparable BEV, cars should pay road tax based on their weight as main factor
5. cheaper per km expenses (vs fast chargers, half of the DK population lives in apartments)
OTOH BEV advantages:
1. better acceleration
2. quieter
3. simpler engine, so in theory less maintenance and higher longetivity
btw. you don't smell stink of your fumes, so your EV doesn't really solve this problem
I really doubt (most) people care about acceleration/noise and maintenance that much they would be willing to pay double price of the ICE and get those disadvantages
Don't get me wrong, I am fan of EVs, but under normal market conditions. Bring me Chinese EVs for Chinese price and if EV will be actually cheaper than some European ICE, then people can accept those EV disadvantages, but at current prices which are already not real thanks to gov it just doesn't make sense for someone not living in their own house with PV.
ICE arguments: 1. debatable, today it's definitely not (I don't discuss imaginary situations). 2. I don't care, I don't drive thousand km. 3. and when I do, I do highway stops anyway, where the quick charger easily catches up. 4. "should" - again imaginary argument, I'll skip. 5. My actual electric costs are exactly half than gas previously (also, fast charging can happen in garages/parking spots). EV arguments: 1. again I don't care, racing is for kids. 2. inside they're both quiet. 3. indeed in two years no engine issues yet, but the car being new surely helped.
So, like I said: to me a car is just a car. But no stink and less cost so far.
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