Stop 01 of 09 · Planning

How is a site chosen?

About 6 min · 3 questions ·

Tuesdaymonth 1
The situation

A retail park two minutes from a motorway junction. A charging developer and the owner of the park walk across the car park.

The plan: eight fast-charging bays, four chargers of 300 kW each.

The questionWhy this car park, and what has to be true for a site to work?

Guess firstHalf of all public charging sites in Europe have the same number of charge points. How many?RevealHide

Two. 51% of all sites have exactly two charge points; only 1.5% have 20 or more, but those large sites hold 16.4% of all charge points.

Four questions for every site

  • Who passes, and how long do they stay? A motorway junction brings traffic; shops and cafés give a reason to stay as long as a fast-charging stop takes.
  • What does the grid offer? The connection decides how much power is possible, and how soon (stop 02).
  • Who owns the land? The has to agree, and usually wants something in return (stop 03).
  • Can drivers find and reach it? Visible from the road, easy to enter, open at all hours.
Densest in the Netherlands and Belgium226,799 sites · 839,148 charge points
Charge points per 25 km square1 to 910 to 4950 to 249250 to 9991,000 and more

Map base © OpenStreetMap contributors, via Overture Maps Foundation.

The hub of this path is one of 226,799 public charging sites on this map, run by more than 15,000 operators. Each dot sums the charge points in a 25 km square. National registries of 8 countries, OpenChargeMap elsewhere, so coverage varies outside those countries. Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg and Poland are not included, so the map shows part of the network: the EU alone counted 1,159,838 public recharging points in August 2026.

Most sites are small, the large ones carry weightCharge points per site, Europe
SitesCharge points
1 charge point12.9%3.5%
2 charge points51.1%27.6%
3 to 4 charge points19.9%20.3%
5 to 9 charge points10.7%19.1%
10 to 19 charge points3.9%13.1%
20 and more charge points1.5%16.4%

Shares of the 226,799 sites and 839,148 charge points on the map above. Half of all sites have two charge points; sites with 20 or more are 1.5% of sites but hold 16.4% of all charge points.

What EU law expectsTargets along the main roads
Distance60km

at most between pools on the TEN-T core network, in each direction

Pool, end of 2025400kW

with at least one charge point of 150 kW

Pool, end of 2027600kW

with at least two charge points of 150 kW

Per electric car1.3kW

of public power for each registered battery electric car

Article 3 of AFIR. For each plug-in hybrid, Member States must provide 0.8 kW of public power.

Targets are a floor, not a plan

obliges Member States to ensure a minimum: every 60 km along the core network, and public power that grows with the number of electric cars. Where exactly a hub stands is decided by the companies that build and run it, guided by traffic, grid and land.

This retail park sits on a core-network motorway. Four 300 kW chargers would exceed the 2027 pool target on their own.

Check your understanding

3 questions. Answer all of them to complete this stop. Each answer explains itself.

01Question 1 of 3

Why does a retail park near a motorway junction suit fast charging?

02Question 2 of 3

What does AFIR require along the TEN-T core network by the end of 2025?

03Question 3 of 3

What share of public charging sites in the directory data has 20 or more charge points?

Further in other paths

  1. Regulations and compliance · Stop 02What does AFIR require?Targets for Member States and duties for operators: the two halves of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, and the dates that matter.
  2. Business models · Stop 07Why does utilisation decide the business case?Fixed costs spread over the kWh sold: the cost per kWh of one charger at different utilisation, computed, and what it means for prices and investment.
  1. emobility.directory: Charge point operators in Europe, from national registries of 8 countries and OpenChargeMap; Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg and Poland left out, data as of 28 Sep 2026. https://emobility.directory/. Checked 28 Sep 2026. Charging data: Bundesnetzagentur.de (CC BY 4.0); IRVE, transport.data.gouv.fr (Licence Ouverte 2.0); NDW (CC0); DGT (CC BY); Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi (CC BY 4.0); Via Lietuva (CC BY 4.0); NOBIL by Enova (CC BY 4.0); Open Charge Map contributors (CC BY 4.0), including public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0; combined and calculated by emobility.directory.
  2. emobility.directory: Charging map of Europe, national charging-point registries (DE, FR, NL, ES, FI, LT, NO, SE) and OpenChargeMap (other countries), September 2026; Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg and Poland left out; map base from Overture Maps Foundation, © OpenStreetMap contributors. https://emobility.directory/. Checked 28 Sep 2026. Charging data: Bundesnetzagentur.de (CC BY 4.0); IRVE, transport.data.gouv.fr (Licence Ouverte 2.0); NDW (CC0); DGT (CC BY); Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi (CC BY 4.0); Via Lietuva (CC BY 4.0); NOBIL by Enova (CC BY 4.0); Open Charge Map contributors (CC BY 4.0), including public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0; combined and calculated by emobility.directory; map base © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via Overture Maps Foundation.
  3. European Alternative Fuels Observatory, European Commission: EAFO Data Update & News Flash September 2026: public recharging points in the EU27, August 2026. https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/general-information/news/eafo-data-update-news-flash-september-2026. Checked 10 Oct 2026.
  4. emobility.directory: Charging map of Europe, national charging-point registries (DE, FR, NL, ES, FI, LT, NO, SE) and OpenChargeMap (other countries), September 2026; Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg and Poland left out; map base from Overture Maps Foundation, © OpenStreetMap contributors. https://emobility.directory/. Checked 28 Sep 2026. Charging data: Bundesnetzagentur.de (CC BY 4.0); IRVE, transport.data.gouv.fr (Licence Ouverte 2.0); NDW (CC0); DGT (CC BY); Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi (CC BY 4.0); Via Lietuva (CC BY 4.0); NOBIL by Enova (CC BY 4.0); Open Charge Map contributors (CC BY 4.0), including public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0; combined and calculated by emobility.directory; map base © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via Overture Maps Foundation.
  5. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 (AFIR), Articles 3, 5 and 20 and recital 38. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1804/oj. Checked 09 Oct 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
  6. EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 (AFIR), Articles 3, 5 and 20 and recital 38. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1804/oj. Checked 09 Oct 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
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