4 Frequently Asked Questions About Electric Car Charging

Let's start with the most basic: the number of electric cars is increasing. In 2020, a third of newly registered passenger cars were rechargeable, a figure that rose to 45% in 2021 and is expected to be 60% by 2022. During March 2022, more than 340,000 rechargeable vehicles rolled on our streets and by 2030 that figure is expected to have risen to 2.5 million. Yes, you hear. The question is not whether electric cars will become the norm, but when the key players around electric car charging hang in on the train.

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Because with an increase in the number of electric cars, the demand for easily accessible electric car charging also increases, a demand that you with parking assets have the best conditions to meet.

90% of the charging takes place while the cars are parked in the property owners' parking lots. Only 10% of the charge takes place in public at the mall or visitor parking.

With the rapidly increasing demand, a lot of questions are emerging. In this article, we go through and try to answer three of the most common questions that we receive from property owners, managers, parking operators and municipalities.

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Is electricity enough for electric cars?

A common question when it comes to charging electric cars is whether the electricity will be enough for everyone to drive an electric car. If you only look at Sweden's electricity production, the short answer is “yes”...

In 2021, Sweden's electricity production was about 166 TWh, and exports amounted to 25.6 TWh. If we consider that this exported electricity was “over” and could thus be used to charge our cars - and all 5 million cars in Sweden were electric - then we would still have a surplus of about 13.6 TWh.

Here's how we count:

• A car drives an average of 1,200 miles a year.
• An electric car drives an average of 2 kWh/mile.
• In total, an electric car consumes an average of 2400 kWh per year.
• 2400 kWh * 5 million cars = 12 TWh.
• 25.6 TWh — 12 TWh = 13.6 TWh

However, an important question remains: even if the amount of electricity is enough, will the grid be able to charge all these electric cars at the same time? The energy system can handle it based on energy (kWh) but not kW. If they all load at the same time and at high power (as, for example, if everyone were to fast charge at the same time on the tray), then it will be pancake. But if we can spread the charge out over time with lower power then it will work. This is where you with parking assets can create magic.

When charging is integrated into parking management, electricity lasts longer

The average car is parked 96% of the time. By offering charging in connection with the parking lot, you enable the parking operator to charge the car with lower power for a longer period of time, also known as normal charging. Lower power means a lower load on the power grid and the property's electrical capacity. This, together with load balancing functions, allows more people to load and provide enough power.

In summary, we can say that by offering normal charging as part of the subscription parking, you can make the electricity last longer than if the only way to recharge would be by fast charging at the mall or visitor parking. Here you can read more about how fast and normal charging works.

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What do we gain by integrating electric car charging into the parking offer?

As I said: the number of electric cars is increasing and with it the demand for electric car charging also increases. Offering electric car charging as an integral part of your subscription parking will have three important effects:

1. Your existing tenants will be more satisfied because you offer a demanded service in a user-friendly way.
2. With the ability to charge adjacent to the property, more of your existing tenants are likely to purchase rechargeable vehicles, increasing the use of your parking and charging services.
3. The electric car charging gives you a competitive advantage and you attract new tenants who demand electric car charging.

These three together help you increase your income. To opt out of electric car charging from the service offering instead is to give away that revenue to someone else. Existing tenants will have to look for other solutions, while potential new tenants may opt out of you as a landlord because you cannot meet their needs.

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Isn't it enough to install a couple of charging boxes?

The option of buying a pair of charging boxes from a charging box manufacturer and having them operated in a separate system has three significant drawbacks. Firstly, it creates a complicated user experience for your tenants. Secondly, it increases the amount of administration, since you manually need to synchronize agreements between parking and charging. Finally, you also lose control of the charging business and the customer relationship. Here you can read more about the consequences of separating the electric car charge from the parking lot.

If you do not want or cannot handle the technical or financial management of your chargers yourself, we recommend that you contact a hardware independent charging operator. Choose an operator that integrates with a parking management system, so you can maintain the customer relationship, synchronize management between parking and charging, and at the same time offer an optimal user experience for your tenants.

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How much does it cost to invest in electric car charging?

Charging boxes and their installation may vary in price. High-power fast chargers are usually more expensive than normal chargers, and in addition to the expense of the hardware, there is an installation cost as well as any costs to guarantee an adequate supply of electricity. Therefore, it is difficult to give a simple answer to how much it costs to invest in electric car charging. What you need to do is take quotations from various installers who make site visits and recommend a solution that suits your needs and conditions. When you bring in such a quote, it is useful, among other things, to consider:

• How many and what kind of chargers do you need? Should these be installed in garages or on outdoor parking spaces?
• How should the charge be monitored and maintained remotely (cloud service)?
• Do you need a payment solution for charging or do you have an existing system that handles this? If so, is the charger compatible with your existing system? (for example, OCPP compliant)
• Do you also want to hire the installer for the operation and maintenance of the chargers?
• Should you or the installer handle customer support?

You are of course warmly welcome to contact us if you want tips on operators that you can turn to.

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State aid halves investment cost

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency offers investment support for charging points. This allows you to recoup up to 50% of your investment costs, with a maximum cap of SEK 15,000 per recharge point. For charging points that should be publicly available, you can seek support from Climatic life and for those of you who mainly want to offer electric car charging to residents or employees, there is the subsidy”Charge the car“.

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How to get started with offering electric car charging to its tenants?

Once you have decided that you want to offer electric car charging to your tenants, there is a lot to consider. We have covered some examples of this in this blog post, but to help you get started in the right way, we have gathered more information in a separate article. Welcome to read more about how to get started with electric car charging here: “This is how you include electric car charging in your parking management strategy.”

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