Electric Car Chargers to Outnumber Gas Stations in Great Britain Within 3 Years, Nissan Says

The King is dead, long live the King.

byRob Stumpf|
Electric Car Chargers to Outnumber Gas Stations in Great Britain Within 3 Years, Nissan Says
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The key to the successful launch of long-range electric cars isn't just perfecting the cars themselves, but also securing the infrastructure for charging those vehicles. In a recent press release provided by Nissan, the company made a bold prediction that there will be more public EV chargers available to consumers than there will be gas stations in Great Britain in just three years.

Contrary to what one might think, it's not just the rapid acceleration of EV charger installations around the United Kingdom that will attribute to the downfall of the gas pump. In fact, the latter number has been falling for quite some time. Since the 1970s, the number of gas stations in Europe has fallen from 37,539 to just 8,472 in 2015—a 77 percent reduction in the number of places a car can fill up. Nissan believes that this number will be further reduced by around 7 percent by 2020. This means by that point, the charging infrastructure—which is believed to grow to 7,900 public locations by that same time—will surpass the 7,870 petrol stations.

Nissan believes that if the charging infrastructure continues to keep up with the sales of electric vehicles, eventually, the masses will begin to buy more and more electric cars. And the carmaker is already ahead of the game in that field; due to their early entry into the EV market, Nissan holds the title of "most EVs sold" worldwide.

"As electric vehicle sales take off, the charging infrastructure is keeping pace and paving the way for convenient all-electric driving," Edward Jones, Nissan EV Manager, said in a statement. "Combine that with constant improvements in our battery performance and we believe the tipping point for mass EV uptake is upon us. As with similar breakthrough technologies, the adoption of electric vehicles should follow an ‘S-curve’ of demand. A gradual uptake from early adopters accelerates to a groundswell of consumers buying electric vehicles just as they would any other powertrain."

Gasoline has long ruled as the supreme fuel of motor vehicles around the world. The first fuel station opened in the U.K. in November 1919, and this fuel has held the crown for nearly 98 years. But if all goes as planned, the petrol peddling pioneers of yesteryear will soon fall in favor of a new electrified reign across the Kingdom.

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