The world still doesn’t have enough places to plug in cars

EVEN in the biggest electric vehicle markets, a driver venturing too far from home can have a hard time finding a place to recharge.

Try your luck on California’s Pacific Coast Highway. The roughly 600-mile route between San Diego and San Francisco has dramatic sea cliffs, off-the-grid retreats, lush vineyards-and, in some long stretches, few places to recharge for anyone who isn’t behind the wheel of a Tesla car.

California is home to about half the battery-powered passenger cars in the US and does more than almost anywhere else to encourage EVs, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to plug in. Drivers face similar frustrations outside of China’s major urban hubs and on road trips through Europe.

Executives in the nascent charging industry, drawing investment from carmakers and energy giants alike, know that limited infrastructure has become a chokepoint.

“It’s a pretty rubbish experience charging a car today,” Roy Williamson, vice president of oil giant BP’s advanced mobility unit, which is investing in charging operators and technology companies, said at a Bloomberg NEF conference in San Francisco this month.

The first thing needed is more places to plug in. The global electric-vehicle fleet reached 5 million last year, according to BNEF, supported by a little more than 600,000 public charging points around the world. Under a scenario where EVs hit 30 percent market share by 2030, the International Energy Agency projects a need for somewhere between 14 million and 30 million public chargers deployed globally to serve regular passenger vehicles. — Bloomberg