Fastned Station Expansion Perspective For Next 5 Years – CleanTechnica

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Last Updated on: 21st August 2025, 12:45 pm

Fastned was founded to enable “Electric Freedom,” the capability to travel by electric car everywhere the driver likes to go, something that was not possible in the first electric car age. That is roughly the period from 1880 to 1930. The grid, the batteries, and the charging possibilities of those times made that impossible. Even with those difficult conditions, the fleet-share of BEV reached about 30% in the USA just before the start of the Great Depression. Electric cars were just better driving machines.

To realize that freedom, Fastned is focused on building charging stations along the highways. Fastned is a partner in the Spark Alliance (marketing, apps, supporting each other’s customers) to offer even more high-quality charging locations to its customers.

Fastned has the longstanding goal to have 1,000 charging stations (locations) by 2030. On one hand, that is a lot of new stations to build in the next 5–6 years. On the other hand, that is far from enough to become a leading charging provider in the main European charging markets and the developing markets in Central and Southern Europe. The Spark Alliance helps a lot with more locations, especially in Southern Europe. I plan to test this by travelling to Athens later this year (or early next year), going through Central Europe down to Athens and returning through Italy and the Alps.

I thought to detect and respond to some skepticism among analysts and online followers about the possibility of realizing these goals.

The state of play after Q1 2025 was 353 operational stations, 234 secured locations (contracts signed with the expectation that all permits are obtainable), 106 expected locations (20 Places for London, 77 Deutschlandnetz, and 9 IdeLux). That is 693 reasonably sure to be operational before 2030. There are a further 40 options (Places for London) likely after 2030.

Fastned is a vertically integrated company with a real estate project development team in each country where it is active or going to be active. These teams cover the whole process — from lobbying to the turnkey delivery of a new station to the station’s operational teams. The search, acquisition, and red-tape-cutting groups were substantially enlarged two years ago. They are starting to produce more and more locations now. At least a hundred each year are expected from them. Six new teams are being formed in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Poland, and Ireland. These countries have the same potential as the six countries Fastned is currently active in — the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.

Now there is a need to grow the realization teams, the architects and building managers — the people often seen in yellow jackets wearing hard hats. Production has to increase from 50 last year to 150–200 by 2030. I think the challenge of this scaling up might be the source of much skepticism.

In 2023 and 2024, installations were a bit disappointing. After 56 in 2022, only 53 were installed in 2023 and 49 in 2024. For 2025, Fastned applied for 80 building permits. At least that many new stations should be started this year.

The Netherlands is the home turf of Fastned. With 208 operational stations now at secured locations and still room to grow, I hope for 250 stations by 2030. With the motorway network mostly covered, Fastned started an awareness campaign aimed at municipal authorities about the importance of urban fast charging stations. This is in addition to the 1.6 million AC curbside chargers goal for 2030 that is in the national action plan.

In 2024, it secured 10 new locations. Another 43 in the next 5 years is a very modest expectation, especially after starting the discussion about smart fast charging infrastructure in urban areas. An extra challenge is the expiring of the oldest concession with a 15 year duration at the end of this decade. These locations will be auctioned like all motorway rest area concessions are auctioned periodically.

The United Kingdom was one of the first markets Fastned expanded into. It is characterized by cooperation with local authorities and acquiring locations on the open market. The result has been a cluster of stations around Newcastle and now a very promising joint venture in London.

The Fastned JV with Places for London (PfL) is planning to build 25 large fast charging stations before 2030, with an option to build 40 more, likely later. Places for London is the real estate daughter of the public transport agency Transport for London, known especially for the London Underground and its red double-decker busses. Real estate for charging stations is extremely scarce in London, but PfL has a lot of it.

London is a metropole with about the same population as Belgium (12 million), and when including commuters and regular visitors and shoppers, the fast charging stations must service the needs of a population comparable with the Netherlands (18 million). Okay, most will use public transport. But the incentives and regulatory pressure to choose a BEV over a fossil-fueled vehicle when visiting London by car are rather high. The 5 locations now decided upon plus the 20 promised by PfL are not much for the fleet of BEVs that will look for a charger in London around 2030. The extra 40 that are an option for “later,” but are not impossible to start in this decade, will make Fastned a dominant player in this area.

The rest of the UK could also use some Fastned stations. There are dozens of local and regional tenders open in the UK. They are mostly for AC public charging, but some are also looking for fast charging. It must be possible to find some nice locations. The UK search, acquisition, and red-tape-cutting group is known for its ability to contract private locations.

Currently, there are 32 operational stations, about 30 secured locations outside London, and 25 PfL locations. Only 13 extra locations are needed to get the UK to 100 hundred stations. What is the chance that the UK team can at least double that number?

Germany is a difficult story. After four years of working hard but being blocked by the uncertainty of the Deutschlandnetz outcome, there were few locations acquired. The pipeline with secured locations was nearly empty. That changed last year. After wining three tenders, the team now has a huge workload. The tenders plus some extra locations resulted in 53 new locations and another 77 “search areas” — these are locations where Fastned is supposed to find a location for a station within 3 km of a map coordinate.

It is probably easy to tell a local real-estate owner, mayor, or other local mover: “Hi, we are tasked by the German federal government to build a charging station in this locale. We are Fastned, a European leading fast charging company. We build the best looking stations after consulting with local stakeholders.” It is not as easy to get support saying this: “We are a foreign company you have never heard of, but we want to build a fast charging station that will generate a lot of traffic in your beautiful, quiet place.” Being tasked with building 124 stations in the northern and western parts of Germany makes it clear where to focus the energy to look for other off-motorway, rural, and urban locations to complement the locations from Deutschlandnetz. It also makes the discussion with stakeholders and local authorities easier in other parts of Germany.

Fastned is also trying to open all the prime highway service locations, managed by Tank und Rast, for an open competitive tender for charging stations. At the moment, Tank und Rast considers charging part of its gas station license. It is granting charging opportunities to business partners in private deals. Fastned thinks the charging was not part of the license, because it did not exist when the license was granted to Tank und Rast, and has asked the court to confirm that. The German court asked the EU court whether this is a serious issue. The EU court said that, yes, this is a legitimate question. They are now looking at the facts very carefully. (Legalese translated by me. 😉)

The stations from the Deutschlandnetz MRA tender (Fastned won 34 of them) are located at 200 out of about 800 MRA along with nothing else or just a (clean) bathroom building and sometimes a quiet space for prayer and contemplation. Convincing the Bundesregierung in Berlin to auction the other 600 in a new set of tenders is a task for later this decade.

With about 170 station locations operating, secured, or highly likely now, there’s an opportunity to get some excellent highway locations, as well as clarity regarding where Fastned needs to find new locations. Germany can expect Fastned to be one of its leading fast charging companies within a few years. I expect at least 200 and probably 300 stations by 2030.

France’s charging future is very opaque. The main French highways are owned and managed by private companies. A few years ago, the French minister in charge told those companies to get adequate charging infrastructure along their routes yesterday. In no time, these companies organized tenders and awarded locations to a number of CPOs. Uncoordinated private initiative tenders made the infrastructure as diverse as possible. Fastned won some locations in these tenders, but was unable to offer a meaningful proposal in others.

After this whirlwind of tenders, auctions, and building EV charging infrastructure, the leading CPOs in France united as Charge France. This is a group that is promoting electric driving and charging. It promotes European standardization, it has a public outreach program, and, as one can expect, its main function is lobbying and influencing policy.

It also has the lofty goal of tripling the DC fast charging infrastructure in France by 2028 — from 2,000/10,000 stations/chargers to 6,000/30,000 stations/chargers.

The 13 members of the group said they were going to spend €3 billion on this project. Looking at the prices of building stations in other European countries, and inflation and upward pressure from rising demand for locations and equipment, it might be double that amount. (Just adding my 2 cents.) When aiming to build a fair 1/13 share, that is 460 stations for Fastned. With the locations it currently has, that is over 500 locations in France alone. Not realistic in my humble opinion. But tripling the number of stations to something close to 150 in a competitive race with the other members sounds like a great challenge for Fastned France.

There are now about 77 (45 operational + 23 secured) locations. Somewhere between 150 and 200 operational stations should be possible by 2030.

Belgium is a small country, but not insignificant. In 2024, Fastned’s revenue there nearly doubled, and it is now Fastned’s second biggest market, overtaking Germany. Fastned is market leader in Belgium and has enough locations in development to more than double its stations to about 75. The southern part of Belgium, Wallonia, is underserved with regard to fast charging stations because the previous administration did not cooperate. The current administration knows the infrastructure is needed. So, Wallonia has some catching up to do, and the first concrete step is a partnership with IDELUX (a collective of provincial municipalities in the province of Luxembourg, not the Grand Duchy of the same name) for 11 stations.

Expecting less than 100 stations in Belgium in 2030 is very pessimistic.

Switzerland was a very slow starter. For years, while tenders were won, no stations were built. That has changed. It now has 11 operational stations and 30 secured locations. Fewer than 50 stations by the end of 2030 would be a huge disappointment to me. That is only 9 more to secure.

Expanding the current operational footprint.

Then there are the markets into which Fastned has plans to expand. This starts with creating local teams and training them in the Fastned way of working. All these teams are trained in the Fastned way of real estate project development and standards.

The teams in Denmark, Spain, and Italy are rolling and have won their first tenders. The first stations (Denmark 3 and Italy 1) have already opened. Austria, Ireland, Luxemburg, and Poland are expected to see results from Fastned’s lobbying, search, and acquisition groups this year.

The BEV fleets in Denmark, Austria, and Luxembourg are big enough to support profitable fast charging stations. Ireland is struggling with changing incentives, but with a 2.5% BEV fleet share, it is right between Belgium 2.58% and France 2.47% in BEV adoption.

In Spain, there are concentrations of BEVs around the metropolises of Madrid and Barcelona, but in the rest of the country, stations will be mainly visited by tourists from north of the Pyrenees. Italy is not much different. There are BEV drivers in the Po Valley; for stations in the boot of Italy, it is about hoping for tourists to travel an extra few hundred miles. The heel and toes are about 600 miles from Po Valley. Spain and Italy have BEV fleet shares that are about a quarter of Ireland’s.

Last and also least, we have Poland. There just are not enough BEV drivers to make stations profitable there, but as one of the six main European markets, the presence of Fastned is kind of mandatory. Poland, besides being big, is also one of the fastest growing European economies. The transition to electric driving without much government push is hindered by the chicken and egg problem. Fastned can be of influence with its very recognizable stations. I expect the new car market to flip when more BEV models pass the parity point with their ICEV competitors. Poland is now a favorite dumping ground for used ICE cars from richer EU member states. The faster technological aging of BEVs make them prime candidates for a single journey east when they become less attractive in Western Europe.

That’s just my 2 cents 2500 words on Fastned succeeding in opening 1,000 stations by 2030.

Looking at my very conservative guesses for 2030 in the six countries Fastned is now active, I see 850 stations at a minimum. Is 150 too optimistic for the 7 new countries? The counter is at 36 now, only 114 to go.

Looking at what passed in recent years, signing contracts is not the biggest problem. Cutting all the red tape is harder. Obtaining grid connections is hardest. And not all signed grid contracts and new substations result in an active connection to the grid. Two years from signing to shovel ready for a location is not exceptional. The last step, the actual building of the station, is supervised and managed by Fastned but done by local contractors. From observation, this last step takes 4 to 8 weeks.

Looking at the pipeline through those glasses, another 400+ locations must be signed before mid 2028. That is about three years from now. That way the 1,000th location is shovel ready by mid 2030 to get all 1,000 stations operational by end 2030.

Possible? Time will tell.