Türkiye’s EV charging network not growing fast enough

ISTANBUL

The number of electric vehicles on Türkiye’s roads has been rising fast, as the expansion of the country’s charging network is lagging behind.

There was a total of 99,759 registered EVs in the country as of the end of March, surging nearly 600 percent compared with the end of 2022 at 14,500.

As the first domestically produced Togg and Tesla entered the local market, EV sales in Türkiye saw a steep increase.

Last year, more than 72,000 EVs were sold in the country, pointing to an 833 percent increase compared to 2022. Despite the growing popularity of EVs, the charging network is not expanding fast enough.

In the first four months of 2024, EV sales grew 205 percent year-on-year to 23,102, said the Automotive Distributors’ and Mobility Association (ODMD) earlier this month.

There are only 7,949 public chargers with a total of 18,454 connectors across the country, according to the data from the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK).

Of those more than 18,000 connectors, 6,474 are compatible with fast charging (DC), whereas 11,980 are for slow charging (AC).

Türkiye ranks 11th in the EU in terms of the number of EVs. However, there are 12.5 EVs per public charger. This ratio is 3-to-1 in the Netherlands and Belgium, 5.6 in Italy, 11 in Germany and 7.9 in France.

In the Netherlands, there are around 465,000 EVs and 154,000 charging points, whereas those numbers for Belgium are 161,000 and more than 52,000, respectively.

Germany has the highest number of EVs at 1.4 million and there are some 131,000 chargers.

EPDK’s high-case scenario assumes that the number of EVs in Türkiye will exceed 361,000 in 2025 and climb to 1.7 million in 2030 and 4.2 million in 2035.

The number of charging points should rise to nearly 62,000 in 2025, according to the EPDK’s projections.