No authority in Romania knows how many charging sockets for electric cars exist at the national level and I think that even in the next five years we will not know this, said, on Thursday, during a specialized event, Adrian Sandu, secretary general and member of the board of the Romanian Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACAROM).
“Do you think there is any authority in Romania that knows how many charging sockets there are? No, there aren’t. If you go and ask ANRE, they say that they only approve very high power ones, if you go to the Ministry of Energy, they say ‘No, we only deal with production’, if you go to the Ministry of Transport, they say ‘We don’t have anything to do with that’, the same if you go to RAR. You have to have a hundred applications to see all available charging networks, but no one will ever tell you where you have to go to know how many stations there are in Romania. We in Romania, I think that even in the next five years we will not know how many charging stations we have. With safety, hence a big problem for us, the Romanians, because we will never know if and where there is any station available, compared to the ones displayed. The rest are secrets”, said Sandu, quoted by Agerpres.
He added that the Romanian authorities must invest in the transformation of transport solutions, and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) represents an opportunity.
“The authorities must invest in this transformation, let’s leave the parks outside the cities, build them and make adapted streets, make transport solutions. We, as an association, have non-stop discussions with the authorities regarding these aspects. We have and the PNRR, with 14,000 charging stations. I hope that the PNRR remains and the 14,000 stations remain, but in addition to the 14,000 stations, let’s not forget that we have a distribution and electricity network that probably next year , after we have 2,000 megawatts in photovoltaic energy panels installed in Romania, we may find ourselves with some buffers. Hence, the need for further investments. To have mobility you must have electricity, because you cannot you just make it at home… Electric trucks need 150 kilowatt charging sockets to have a reasonable charging time. If you charge at 220, it could take you a week to charge your truck,” he claimed ACAROM representative.