According to a study by the state-owned KfW bank, public charging points for electric cars should be built primarily in urban areas in the future.

So far, the expansion of charging stations in Germany has “tend to be evenly distributed”, which means that in sparsely populated areas the offers do not cover costs, according to the study published on Thursday.

In conurbations, on the other hand, higher usage rates can be expected if there is a further increase in electric vehicles.

In rural areas, more car owners would have the opportunity to charge their e-car on a private parking space.

The bank presented the results of its energy transition barometer, for which 4,000 representative households were surveyed.

After that, more than half of the households surveyed stated that they could not imagine buying an e-car because of the lack of charging infrastructure.

In urban districts, even 56 percent expressed this view.

Other arguments against battery vehicles were the shorter range, long charging times and high purchase prices.

Three times more e-cars than charging stations

In rural areas, between 34 and 38 percent of those surveyed stated that they could basically charge a car on a private parking space.

On the other hand, 25 percent have no space for it according to their own assessment.

In the urban districts, only 19 percent said they could organize their own charging station.

The need for public charging points is therefore greater there.

KfW pointed out that in the past two years the number of electric cars has grown three times faster than the charging options.

Instead of 8 electric cars, 23 vehicles would now have to share a public charging point.

This is also well below the original EU target of one charging point for every ten electric cars.

"If this trend continues, this could become a problem for the practical suitability of electromobility," explained KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib.

Stronger incentives to switch to electric technology can only be given if the growing demand for charging is met in order to achieve the climate targets for the transport sector.