The electric vehicle fast-charging station firm Fastned has been granted a total of €4.1 million by the German government, to be used for the development of 25 fast-charging stations in Germany, according to an email sent to CleanTechnica.
The grant — awarded by State Secretary Rainer Bomba of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure — will be used to build electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging stations capable of providing up to 250 kilometers worth of range within 20 minutes.
The first of these new fast-charging stations are expected to enter service within the first few months of 2018, the company revealed in its email.
The CEO of Fastned, Michiel Langezaal, commented on the news: “We are very happy that the German government has initiated this programme because it brings forward the break-even point, making it more attractive for investors to invest in this green infrastructure. In the next few years, billions of euros will need to be invested in this infrastructure to provide charging capacity for the rapidly increasing numbers of EVs on European roads. Germany is central for our ambitions to create a European charging network and this subsidy really helps to accelerate the roll-out of stations in the centre of Europe.”
The email provides a bit of background on the subsidy decision: “The subsidy is part of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure stimulation programme of Bundesminister Dobrindt. The programme is designed to reduce the investment risk associated with investing in infrastructure before the EVs are actually there. This enables charging companies like Fastned to invest ahead of the market and have charging infrastructure in place even before large numbers of EVs will hit the roads. As such, the programme is intended to solve the ‘chicken-and-egg’ problem whereby people are hesitant to buy an EV when there is no charging infrastructure and investors are hesitant to invest in charging infrastructure when there are only few EVs.”
The lack of EV fast-charging stations in Germany has, of course, often been cited as the primary reason that electric car options remain non-viable for many. Even Tesla’s Supercharger network is not yet as developed as it needs to be to support business travelers, if a certain German government minister is to be believed.
For more information on Fastned, see “Fastned’s Revenues Doubled Over The Last Year,” scroll through our Fastned archives, or visit the company’s website.
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