Growth Opportunities in European Electric Bus Charging Infrastructure

Growth Opportunities in European Electric Bus Charging Infrastructure

Tightening emissions regulations, the Clean Vehicles Directive, and government subsidies increasingly drive European bus operators to purchase electric buses for their fleets. However, putting more electric buses on the road requires sufficient charging infrastructure. Most electric fleets operating in Europe use only depot charging or a combination of the depot and en-route charging. The advantage of the latter case is it requires a smaller battery pack, which increases passenger capacity but incurs higher charging infrastructure costs. Several factors hinder charging infrastructure development, including high capital investment and charging costs and an extended return on investment period.

Although these constraints may slow adoption, drivers such as improved cost of ownership, enhanced battery capacity, shorter charging time, and favorable legislation that offers rebates will continue to push the charging infrastructure market forward over the next decade.

The charging infrastructure value chain must be robust and efficient to meet this demand. The value chain starts from energy generation, followed by storage and distribution through transmission and distribution operators to reach public/private hubs. Multiple participants in different parts of the value chain cater to the charging requirements of the growing number of electric buses.

In this report, Frost & Sullivan analyzes the European electric bus charging infrastructure market between 2022 and 2030, with 2022 as the base year. The forecast period is 2023–2030. We computed energy consumption based on charger level (50 kW–1MW) for the forecast period. The report also provides the levelized cost of charging forecast until 2030 for depot and en-route charging. Extensive use case analysis focuses on cost-optimal bus charging, comparing depot against pantograph for electric buses with battery capacity from 80 kWh to 560 kWh for short and long distances.

Frost & Sullivan provides in-depth information and insights to enable charging operators to capitalize on the opportunities available during this period.