In the past four years, Estonia’s electric car charging network has expanded almost tenfold, but electric car sales have not grown as rapidly, writes ERR News.
Developers have admitted that this type of business is unlikely to bring profit in the near future. For investments to start paying off, there must be at least four or five times more electric cars on the roads than there are now. Installing fast charging stations is an expensive undertaking – the cost of one station can reach 300,000 euros.
Jaanus Riiner, head of the transport electrification department, explained that this is a very capital-intensive investment, and the most expensive part is connecting the charging station to the network. The costs depend on the capacity of the charging station, but stations with a capacity of 150 kilowatts and more with especially powerful chargers require significant investments.
In 2022, there were 147 electric car charging points in Estonia, but now there are 2,165. There are 11,500 fully electric cars registered in the country, which means that there is one charging station for every five cars. However, electric car users mainly charge them at home. Electric car sales also remain moderate. 115 new electric cars were sold in April, or 6% of the total number of new cars. Riiner said that the company is carefully watching the relationship between electric cars and charging stations: “This is a long-term business plan. At the moment, neither Enefit nor, presumably, other charging operators are making a profit from this activity.”
Enefit has opened 700 charging points in Estonia.
In Latvia, Elektrum has created 300 charging stations, and plans to increase the number by opening 200 fast charging stations this year, and by the end of this decade, it is planned to add another 1,000 stations.
Agnes Makk, the head of Elektrum Eesti, said the investment was very large. “We see the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure as a business of the future, with a long payback period,” Makk said. She added that Elektrum is one of only a few companies that can afford such a significant investment with such a slow return.
The developers hope that the investment in the charging station network will increase the willingness to abandon internal combustion engine cars in favor of electric vehicles. However, Riiner noted that the investment in Estonia will not start to pay off sooner than 2035. Based on forecasts, there should be about 50,000 electric cars in Estonia by that time. Makk noted that it is difficult to predict rapid growth, but the company has the financial cushion to wait for it.
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