People in southern Czechia are increasingly using EV charging stations

People in South Bohemia are increasingly using public charging stations to charge their electric cars. In the first quarter of this year, drivers took 69 MWh from ČEZ charging stations, 65 percent more than in the same period last year. The company operates 38, twice as many as last year. E.ON operates 47 charging stations. Drivers took 83 MWh from them in the first quarter, 47 percent more than last year. People are also increasingly seeking out ultra-fast chargers, according to data from energy companies.

Various institutions, companies and municipalities operate around 154 charging stations in South Bohemia. There are nearly 2,400 across the country. Each station is equipped with one or more charging points, which are classified according to their output. According to the Ministry of Transport, there are nearly 4,500 charging points in Czechia.

„This year, we have already commissioned new charging stations in the South Bohemian Region, for example in Dačice, where charging infrastructure was previously lacking, and we have a further 130 charging points under construction that we would like to commission this year,“ said Martin Klíma, managing director of E.ON Drive Infrastructure.

Over the past 12 months, ČEZ has expanded its public electric vehicle charging network in Czechia by 135 charging stations. One in four newly built stations had an output of 150 kW or more, enabling drivers to add enough charge for up to another 150 kilometres of driving in ten minutes. „Recently, we have been focusing mainly on building ultra-fast charging stations, and we want to have more than 110 by the end of this year,“ said Tomáš Dzurilla, head of e-mobility at ČEZ.

People registered 32 new passenger electric cars in the South Bohemian Region in the first quarter of this year, compared with 20 in the same period last year. However, the number of registrations across the Czech Republic was lower than in EU member states. A total of 332.999 new passenger battery electric vehicles were registered in the EU in the first quarter of 2024, up 3.8 percent year on year. In the Czech Republic, there were 1307 new passenger electric cars, down 1.2 percent year on year.

„In terms of the share of battery electric vehicles, both currently and over the long term, Czechia ranks near the bottom among EU countries. Despite the unflattering comparison with EU countries, a total of 24.239 category M1 battery electric vehicles were registered in Czechia as of 31 March 2024, already more than the 23.089 CNG vehicles,“ said Lukáš Kadula of the Transport Research Centre.

A quarter of the electric cars acquired in Czechia are used, and 75 percent of registrations are by businesses. The most common makes are Tesla (4536), Škoda (4346), Volkswagen (2719), BMW (2332) and Hyundai (1811), Kadula said.