Trends & Sentiment in the Charging Industry – electrive Report from Power2Drive 2024 in Munich
"Every year, the charging infrastructure industry meets at Power2Drive in Munich – as it did again last week. Peter Schwierz, editor-in-chief of electrive, captured the atmosphere and current technology trends in his video report. To put it simply: the industry is in crisis mode. And this has a lot to do with the current state of electromobility in Germany.
At the trade fair in Munich, three topics were particularly in focus: high-performance charging for electric cars and also electric trucks, a new AFIR-compliant payment solution, and (a little less prominently than last year) bidirectional charging.
So, what is the situation in the strained German market? "We see this more as a temporary dip," says Markus Mildner, eMobility CEO of Siemens, referring to the German electric car market. The picture is quite different for commercial electric vehicles: "We still see a great need in the public sector, for buses, and for fleets." And beyond Germany's borders, the business of building charging infrastructure continues as well: "We “Many countries in Central Europe have a market that actually looks quite promising,” said Mildner. He specifically mentioned France and Spain.
Compleo CEO Jörg Lohr assesses the situation similarly: “There are legal discussions in politics about whether electromobility is even necessary. This is being fundamentally questioned again.” This means there has been an extreme amount of unrest in the last six to nine months, which has led to all operators, all manufacturers, in other words, all market participants, actually feeling a bit of a struggle.” Lohr led Compleo through its restructuring and is glad to have already put the crisis behind him. He believes they will weather the current downturn.
Mennekes CEO Volker Lazzaro is also almost annoyed by the discussions leading up to the European elections. He says an anti-electric car campaign is currently underway, completely destroying the image of electric vehicles. “Who benefits from this?” Lazzaro asks. He would prefer planning certainty and clear communication. All players, and especially politicians, need to “pull themselves together.” The Mennekes CEO sums it up: “It’s about all of us working together to transform the German economy into a mobility revolution.” And that's only possible with electric power.
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