Every day, 20 Ukrainian citizens change their gasoline cars to electric ones, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure.
As the number of electrically driven vehicles grew in the country from a modest 59 in 2014 to nearly 15,500 today, the demand for better infrastructure to match that growing demand is putting pressure on the market and legislators.
A shortage of quick charging stations that can charge a car in 25 minutes, few parking spaces, poor roads, and even the absence of a respectful attitude from the drivers of gasoline cars are still among hot issues that hinder the growth of electric cars in Ukraine.
According to an online map of electric component manufacturer AutoEnterprise, Ukraine has some 1,374 charging stations, 86 percent of which are low-powered and need several hours to charge a car battery.
“The main problem is related to trends where new models of electric cars have 100-kilowatt batteries and they will need new quick-charging stations in the nearest future,” said Arsenii Abduraimov, chair of the Association of Electric Vehicles of Ukraine, or EV-UA.
Currently, there are just 193 fast-charging points in Ukraine, also known as superchargers. They charge a car in 30 minutes, as opposed to several hours with a regular charging point.
Twenty-three of the superchargers in Ukraine belong to Strum, a network of electric car chargers launched by Ukraine’s DTEK energy company. Four such stations are installed between Kyiv and Odesa, five are between Kyiv and Lviv, and three between Kyiv and Poltava.
“From the Strum station in Lviv, you can go to Europe, to Poland or Hungary,” said Igor Kovalev, head of the Strum project.
Another 35 quick-charging stations are located in Kharkiv and owned by AutoEnterprise, a key Ukrainian producer of electric charging stations for businesses across the country. However, the company’s main business is still exports. It is selling two-thirds of its charging stations abroad, already having sold more than 2,200 charging stations to U.S., Israel, Canada, Poland and other countries since 2014.
Some experts see even bigger problems.
According to Stephan Blagovisnuj, CEO at Toka, another Kyiv-based company producing electric charging stations, in Ukraine there is no general strategy of how to develop big cities in terms of infrastructure for electric vehicles.
“There is no strategy or action plan for the cities, where it would be said, for example, that by 2025 we want such an amount of electric cars in Kyiv, calculate the number of charging stations, parking places, and who pays for what,” said Blagovisnuj.
“Everybody says that it’s important since air pollution from the cars is very high (in Kyiv), but there is no general understanding on how to deal with it,” he added.
Some strategic decisions have been made by the Ukrainian government this year.
According to Alex Ryabchyn, a former Ukrainian lawmaker in 2014-2019, there will be more parking places for electric cars soon. Starting in 2020, drivers who park a gasoline or diesel car in a place reserved for electric vehicles will be fined up to $20 – not a very small fine in Ukraine.
“This was my last law that was passed in the Verkhovna Rada. Regular cars will be fined for parking at such places and towed from it,” Ryabchyn said about the law signed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 6.
Also, the new law reserves road lanes and parking spaces for electric cars, which will have green lettering to stand out.
Other major problem are familiar ones – bureaucracy and corruption.
“Ukraine will grow for us as a market if there is no corruption in connection to power grids,” said Dmytro Nikonov, the founder of AutoEnterprise.
Kill corruption
At first glance, opening an electric charging station is an attractive business prospect.
For example, a 100-kilowatt station – a rare sight in Ukraine – in a good location in Kyiv can bring in $1,000 a month, while average stations generate monthly revenue around $600-$700, according to Nikonov.
But it’s a near-impossible business to get up and running. Just to get started requires battling with bureaucracy, which usually lasts more than six months in the best-case scenario. And when the owner of the charging station wants to connect to a regional power distributor, known as an Oblenergo, he must pay an average of $120-$200 per kilowatt for permission.
“Connection (to the grid) is one of the most painful problems in Ukraine and that’s why the country still lags behind in Doing Business rating,” said Ryabchyn.
If one wants to connect a 100-kilowatt charging complex, they would need to pay $20,000.
“It’s twice more expensive than the station itself,” said Nikonov.
And quite often, to speed up the connection process, people are forced to pay bribes on top of the price of official connection to the grid, according to Nikonov.
The hardest part of this whole journey is getting a tiny plot of land, usually just one square meter, to place the station.
“Before the moment when the station is connected to the power grid, one needs to go through seven circles of bureaucratic hell to get a plot of land. No one wants to deal with this,” said Blagovisnuj.
That is why those who want to set charging stations often do it indirectly through already operating businesses, like OKKO or Socar gas stations, shopping malls, or restaurants.
“The issue of the connection must be solved at the legislative level,” said Ryabchyn.
According to Abduraimov, simplifying connections or making them free could give a significant push to the industry. “There is even a draft law for this, but there are many other complicating nuances, which makes its adoption almost impossible,” he said.
Experience to follow
While the Ukrainian government is taking its first steps towards better infrastructure for electric cars, other countries like Norway, Poland, Australia or China can provide lessons in how to succeed in this field.
“In China, the company, which installed a charging station at its own expense on the highway, did not pay taxes for some period,” said Abduraimov.
In Norway, a leading country in infrastructure for electric vehicles, the government announces tenders in which the state compensates, for example, 400,000 euros for a location where a charging station is needed.
“In Ukraine, we have nothing similar,” said Blagovisnuj.
In Poland, planning and permissions for charging stations is transparent and online. There is a website that lists the planned locations of new charging stations and city halls communicate with planners by email.
Here, improvements are being made, but not quickly enough.
“In Ukraine, people have to pay $20,000 plus bribes, while in Poland my friend set up a station for $580. That’s the difference,” said Nikonov.
