Charging Infrastructure: Utilization Rises Sharply

Operators report record utilization

Since the start of the year, several operators have reported a clear rise in charging utilization. Vattenfall reports around two thirds more electricity charged at its German charge points than across the entire previous year; Vattenfall InCharge itself puts the increase in the amount of energy charged at around 65 percent — the highest value to date in the German network. Particularly dynamic: by the end of August already, more than 10 GWh of electricity had been charged via the fast-charging points — equivalent to a driving distance of around 55 million kilometers, and exceeding the year's total as of eight months into 2025 by 47 percent.

EWE reports 30 percent higher utilization: "Our charge points are on average 30 percent more utilized than last year." E.ON, EnBW and Aral confirm the trend as well — EnBW speaks of utilization that is developing "very well overall", albeit at a low level, E.ON of "fundamentally increasing use of public charging infrastructure", Aral (a brand of the BP Group) reports rising utilization of its fast-charging pillars. The development is attributed to rising EV registrations and high fuel prices.

The charging network is growing: 118,062 charging pillars, 9.2 million kW

Alongside the rising demand, the infrastructure is growing: according to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), there were 118,062 charging pillars in Germany in early August — an increase of 16 percent within one year. The agency puts the combined charging capacity of all pillars at 9.2 million kilowatts, 26 percent more than a year earlier. The five largest operators — EnBW, E.ON, Tesla, EWE and BP — account for more than 28,000 of these charging pillars, at which multiple vehicles can charge side by side.

Demand is still lagging behind expansion: according to the Federation of German Energy and Water Supply Industries (BDEW), in 2025 on average only twelve percent of public charge points were occupied simultaneously. In practice this means: in most regions there is still buffer capacity — but the high utilization figures of the operators show that the freely available capacity is shrinking noticeably.

An overview of the expansion of Germany's charging network, the fast-charging routes and the AFIR obligations through 2027 can be found in our guide Charging Network Germany.

Automakers double their charge points in nine months

A coalition of major automakers has doubled its charge points within nine months — measured against the Tesla network, however, the offering remains clearly smaller. The consortium wants to address with this expansion precisely the hurdle that is braking the EV ramp-up: the patchy availability of charging infrastructure; compared with the Supercharger network, the size of the consortium still plays hardly any role.

The collaboration is a signal that the charging network has to grow in step with the vehicle fleet: the industry now regards charging infrastructure as a joint task rather than a pure competitive advantage — a positive course for everyone who charges publicly on a daily basis.