Establishment of fast-charging stations: False assumption or right decision?

Germany published its political will to have 1 million of electric cars on the streets by 2020 [1]. But keeping the current speed with only 90.8 thousand EVs in use (as of January 2017) [2] the fulfilment of the proclaimed objective did not seem possible and the German Government revoked this goal. Nevertheless the availability of a nationwide fast charging infrastructure is one of the most important drivers for the spread of electromobility in Germany [3]. Currently the future of electromobility in Germany depends on private investors who are challenged by still missing viable business models. High initial cost and low willingness of customers to pay more for the fast charging make economic amortization hard to achieve. Apart from the big investment cost there is a high uncertainty of potential customer's number as far as user acceptance of electromobility still remains low. Based on investors' data and expert interviews the present work focusses on identifying and analysing current challenges for establishing and operating fast charging infrastructure. The outcome then will be tested and elaborated in detail. The main goal of this paper is to examine investors business models assumptions for establishing fast charging infrastructure based on status quo