The Latest Isn’t What You Think
Vacationers are often hesitant when it comes to a car holiday with an electric car. Yet the number of charging stations is increasing rapidly, including at European campsites.
Can I also refuel with gasoline at the campsite? It is a question that a ‘fossil’ vacationer with a gasoline or diesel car will never ask, but the plug-in tourist wants to know if there is a charging station at the holiday park. And luckily, that is happening more and more often.
Camping specialist ACSI inspects nearly 10,000 campsites in Europe every year. At the beginning of June, the organization counted one or more charging points for electric cars at exactly 2,000 of them. On January 1, 2023, there were only 714, or almost a tripling in just two and a half years.
“Not only in the Netherlands, but also in the rest of Europe, electric driving is becoming more and more the standard,” says Ramon van Reine, CEO of ACSI. “Yet there is still some reluctance for a long trip to the campsite, whether or not with a caravan or folding trailer on the tow bar.”
Charging Next to the Caravan Forbidden
According to Van Reine, campers always have many questions about charging points along the way and at the campsites. “That is why our camping inspectors have also been inventorying since 2022 whether there are charging facilities for electric cars. Campsites throughout Europe are responding rapidly to the needs of campers, also because guests were charging their electric vehicles via the power pole at their own pitch. That is now explicitly prohibited at most campsites.”
Also on the way to a foreign campsite, electric drivers nowadays have little to worry about, according to Van Reine, because the charging infrastructure is now in good order, especially along the French and German highways.”
Dutch Campsites are Leading
In the Netherlands, 385 of the 1,066 inspected campsites are currently equipped with charging points, or more than 36 percent. In Luxembourg, Norway, Belgium and Croatia, the percentage is also above 30. In absolute numbers, our country is therefore the number 2 in Europe after France.
Meanwhile, 509 French campsites have charging facilities and that means that 18.5 percent of the total of 2,758 campsites that ACSI inspected last year in this favorite holiday country for the Dutch.
Germany at the Bottom
Germany has 166 campsites -out of a total of 1080- where the electric car can be charged (15.4 percent) and Italy 212 out of 871, or 24.3 percent. In Spain, the ratio is also above the European average: 109 of the 505 inspected campsites in that country have a charging point (21.6 percent).
Percentage of campsites with charging points for electric cars:
14. United Kingdom 15.9 percent