this European country is about to solve one of the biggest problem of fast charging

In Norway, charging station operators will be obliged to offer payment by credit card. It will therefore no longer be necessary to subscribe to a particular subscription or to walk around with numerous charging cards, which should greatly facilitate the life of electric car drivers. Good news: Europe is preparing a similar bond.

Today, charging your electric car is easier than ever. And for good reason, the number of terminals has increased sharply in recent years, so much so that it has now exceeded the fateful 100,000 mark in France in May. A great step forward, while many drivers are still hampered by the too low autonomy of electric models. However, we know that this is in fact false.

A new bond

There are a multitude of operators, including Tesla, Ionity, TotalEnergies, Fastned or Allego, among others. Not to mention the large retail chains, which have entered the field, such as Lidl, which currently offers the cheapest refill in France. Truth be told, all this choice can make you dizzy and it can be difficult to navigate.

Especially since in some cases, you have to subscribe to a specific subscription to be able to take advantage of it. In addition, it happens that the offer offered by the manufacturer of our car with the charging card is not compatible with all terminals. And it may therefore happen that you cannot recharge (or by downloading an application… or by using another recharge card), when in theory everything should work normally. Enough to make charging a real headache for some.

But that should slowly start to change. If we will still have to take our troubles patiently in France, Norway has decided to act in order to make life easier for drivers of electric cars. As the American site explains Electricitythe government took a clever decision, obliging all terminal operators to charge at install a credit card payment terminal.

This measure came into effect on July 1. and concerns all companies that install their sockets on the territory. According to the Ministry of Transport, this obligation is currently valid for charging stations with a power of 50 kW or more. That is to say, fast charging stations.

A simplified charge

Charging stations over 50 kW represent only 12% of the supply at present on our territory, which gives us an idea of ​​the relative rarity of the latter. Note that there is a small subtlety, as American journalists remind us. Indeed, the terminals already installed will not have the obligation to be transformed immediately.

This measure only concerns those that will be put in place from this date. It should be possible to pay for your charge without contact or via your smartphone thanks to Apple Pay or Google Wallet for example.

Of course, the other existing solutions, such as payment by a recharge card or via an application, can still be used. This new measure offers another alternative to users. This should reduce the range anxietythis fear of lack of autonomy and not finding any terminals to plug in your car. But it will probably take some time before this system develops.

Last fall, Recharge claimed to be the first operator to offer payment by credit card. At the beginning of the year, Ionity announced the installation of new terminals on the A7 motorway, which will be equipped with a terminal. In any case, all companies will have to go through it, since the European Union wants to make this solution compulsory before the end of next year.