EV Infrastructure: South Korea Leads the Charge

Charging infrastructure plays a pivotal role in facilitating the global shift towards electric mobility. Public charging stations form the backbone of the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem, addressing range anxiety and ensuring convenient access to charging for EV owners who do not enjoy the luxury of a charging station in their own home or are often on the go.

According to the IEA, there were 2.7 million public charging points worldwide at the end of last, more than 900,000 of which were built in 2022. And while most charging needs are still met by home charging, public charging infrastructure is still a key driver of EV adoption, especially in densely populated urban areas, where home charging is much less prevalent.

Having built more than a million additional public charging stations since 2019, China has invested in EV infrastructure like no other country in the past few years. As our chart shows, it’s South Korea that leads the charge in terms of public charging stations per 1,000 plug-in electric vehicles. According to the IEA data, South Korea had 201,000 public chargers for 357,000 plug-in electric passenger cars at the end of 2022, amounting to 563 charging stations per electric car – by far the highest density in any of the world’s largest EV markets.

With 1.76 million charging points, China accounts for almost two thirds of the world’s public charging infrastructure, but, due to its huge electric vehicle fleet, the country only ranks third in terms of chargers per EV on the road. The Netherlands ranks second in that respect, with 235 public chargers per 1,000 electric cars.