Everyone that has experienced charging an electric car knows that one thing is of utter importance: patience. Frequently a vehicle is hooked up for the night, but the Supercharger may change all of that - recharging takes little longer than a regular fuel pitstop. These powerful charging poles are now to be installed throughout the Grand Duchy.
It’s an historic day, said energy minister Claude Turmes at a press conference on the parking lot of uni.lu. The planned Superchargy network was the last puzzle piece in the government’s electromobility concept. 88 poles are to be installed in the next three years by Creos on 19 different sites. This includes the 6 motorway service points and the most important national roads.
“The supercharger gives us the ability to recharge quickly. That means that one can make use of Luxembourg’s infrastructure, even if they don’t have a garage at home. There’s almost no reason not to have an electric car,” said Turmes.
While classic charging stations have a max capacity of 22kw the supercharger provides 160kw, respectively 320kw. Within five minutes a car has been charged with enough electricity to drive 100km.
The supercharger network is constructed in parallel to the classic charger stations, 800 of the latter which should have been installed by 2020. To date that figure only adds up to 456; the remaining ones will be installed in 2021, Minister for Mobility François Bausch promised, who made use of the opportunity for citizens to put some pressure on communes to bolster their electric charging offers.
Luxembourg should be a leader within the EU, a model for electric mobility, the ministers say. “We’re getting there”, Bausch concludes. Demand for e-cars has grown: in December 2020 a third of all registered vehicles was either electric or hybrid.
