Europe’s EV opportunity—and the charging infrastructure needed to meet it

By Julian Conzade, Florian Nägele, Swarna Ramanathan, and Patrick Schaufuss

The European Union is the global frontrunner in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs): its member countries are responsible for more than a quarter of the world’s EV production, and EVs represented roughly 20 percent of its new-car sales in 2021. The region’s combination of forward-thinking incumbent manufacturers and early-adopting EV consumers offers it a unique opportunity to create a world-leading EV ecosystem. That could generate new jobs, lessen air pollution, accelerate progress toward climate goals, and help Europe become a global EV lighthouse.

Yet a larger uptake of EVs will require a major build-out of Europe’s EV-charging infrastructure. In 2021, the continent had an estimated 375,000 charging stations. But a recent analysis by McKinsey (see sidebar, “The EV Charging Infrastructure Masterplan”), conducted for a report from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), suggests that—in even the most conservative scenario—the EU-27 will need at least 3.4 million operational public charging points by 2030.1 Extensive utility grid upgrades will be required to distribute electricity to these new charging stations and for the increased renewable-energy capacity Europe’s future EVs will need to run on cleaner power (Exhibit 1). In all, this build-out of the EV-charging infrastructure may cumulatively cost upward of €240 billion by 2030.2