The demand for electric cars is increasing significantly in Germany. This is not only evident in the used car trade, but increasingly also in new registrations. According to figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, combustion engines only accounted for 30.7 percent of all newly registered cars in July 2026. In contrast, 29.3 percent were purely electric cars.
If you include plug-in hybrid vehicles, the proportion of new cars with electric drives was even 40.7 percent. This means: Electric vehicles are gaining market share, while classic gasoline and diesel drives are losing importance.
Pay attention to the location
For many years, a lack of charging stations was considered a hindrance. The federal, state and local governments therefore want to further expand the charging network. But experts warn that the current charging station expansion plans do not take enough account of technological change in vehicles and the charging station infrastructure.
It is not absolutely necessary to build a million publicly accessible charging points nationwide by 2030. This is what the so-called charging infrastructure master plans of the past and current federal government provide for. However, the charging network does not necessarily have to grow proportionally with the increasing number of electric vehicles, according to experts. What is more important is what charging power is actually required at which locations.
Fast charging points are more popular
This change becomes particularly clear when looking at the utilization of charging points. At inner-city charging stations that charge rather slowly with alternating current - so-called AC charging points - charging is only carried out around 0.6 times per day on average. In contrast, fast charging points, also known as DC and HPC charging points, have more than 2.5 charging processes per day. HPC stands for “High Power Charging” and refers to particularly powerful direct current charging systems.
These differences can be explained by the respective application profiles. AC charging is particularly suitable when the vehicle is parked for a long period of time - for example overnight, during working hours or when parked for a long time. Fast chargers, on the other hand, fulfill a different function: They make it possible to recharge comparatively large amounts of energy during a short stay.
Some public charging stations unnecessary?
This also changes the question of where charging infrastructure is needed. A nationwide expansion based on a fixed ratio of vehicles to charging points does not take sufficient account of how vehicles are actually used.
The company Cirrantic bundles data from charging station operators and makes it available to car manufacturers and navigation apps. The apps are based on this data and allow electric car drivers to see where charging stations are located, whether they are available and how much charging costs.
The statistics compiled by the company for Plusminus show that since the end of 2024, more charging processes have been carried out using fast chargers than using slow AC chargers. Many public AC charging stations are now likely to be superfluous.
Prices and utilization are becoming more important
Economically, the market is also in a phase of consolidation. The statistics compiled by Cirrantic for Plusminus show that public AC charging costs an average of around 58 cents per kilowatt hour, while fast charging costs around 62 cents. The price difference between slow and fast charging infrastructure is therefore relatively small.
For further market development, this means that the crucial question is no longer just how quickly new charging points will be set up. What is more important is whether the infrastructure is in the right location, is sufficiently utilized, functions reliably and can be used at transparent costs.
Germany is thus moving from the development phase into a phase of optimization. The infrastructure must not only grow quantitatively, but also increasingly be planned according to actual needs and operated economically. The success of electromobility will therefore be measured less by the number of charging stations than by the quality of the overall system: available charging power at the right time in the right place.
