Charging complications in Sweden

chargers — Xpeng G3 on tour in Sweden. Here at ABB's charging solution.

The infrastructure for electric car users is not as well developed in Sweden. If you are going to drive an electric car into Sweden, you should read this post written by Jonny Bunæs.

Xpeng was good to drive, but we got to experience how disastrously poorly developed the charging network is in Sweden. It reminded me of how it was here at home when I drove my electric car about 20 years ago - with registration number EL10052. We had come close to Gothenburg when we almost ran out of power!

Where should we charge?

We only had power left for a few kilometers! After an hour of trying to download apps, bad information and problems with getting an approved bank card and mobile phone from Norway, we were told that the charging station we were standing at was out of order. By then we had been at it for approximately 1 hour. Doesn't the electricity supplier know the state of their chargers so that we could be notified on the app right away? The telephone number that we could call was staffed until 17.00pm. It didn't help us much as it was 23.30pm!

We searched for other charging stations nearby and thought we had found one. The map gave poor options for detailed searches, and after searching the area for a long time, we found the charging station hidden behind a container! We charged up for an hour - enough to reach our destination, Värnamo in Jönköping. The trip further went well, except that we had to wait for more than 30 minutes, due to paving.

We arrived at our booked Airbnb apartment several hours late. It was around 5 in the morning when we woke up the host who could lock us in. It was not a particularly expensive room. But it was an expensive hourly rate since we only got to sleep there for two hours before we had to go to the agreed meeting.

Chargers that don't work

Aware of the damage, we wanted to fully charge before heading home. We found two charging points close to where we had lunch. One had one fast charger and one normal. When we got there to pick up the car to go to the next meeting, there was another electric car owner who wanted our charger. We had charged up to 50% and had to find a new station after the meeting to get as far as possible towards Oslo.

We then tested the second charging station which was a short distance away. Here we had to try three chargers before we found one that worked. It was strange that only one of three chargers worked. Lucky that there weren't more people who wanted to charge at the same time!

The price to charge here was over double what we paid at the previous station.

Sweden is several years behind Norway

In Sweden, the financial advantage of buying an electric car is not as great as in Norway. With such poor charging systems as we experienced, it may take many years before Sweden achieves an equally high percentage. As long as the Swedes do not take electric car users seriously, the country is not particularly suitable for electric cars. It can take 10-20 years to build up a similar charging network as here in the country.

Norwegians should be warned about how wretched the charging options are in Sweden and perhaps be happy that the border remains closed for a while! - Jonny Bunæs.