The number of vehicles in European cities just keeps rising. As more and more people join the daily commute, parking spots are becoming ever harder to find and unoccupied public charging points are increasingly thin on the ground.
Take Munich, for example. I drive an all-electric car and live just 1.6 kilometres from Marienplatz square in the city centre. But my apartment block doesn’t have basement parking or its own charging station. About 300 metres away, there are four public charging points. A good six months ago, I was able to find a free charging station whenever I needed one.
Those days are over. Now, whenever I make a snap decision to stop by a charging station in the early evening, it’s only to find that all four are once again occupied. So I have to settle for a conventional parking spot. Thirty minutes later, I check the charging app and – hooray – a station is free. I race back to the car, drive to the charging point before turning away in annoyance. Yet again, there’s nothing free. The only thing to do is park once again and hope for better luck later.