[NEWS] Many charging points, yet less EV in Kainuu

The amount of electric car charging points has increased in Kainuu region with speed during the latest years. The latest charging points added to the public maps are the 8 charging points of K Group in Kajaani centre. Now there are altogether 45 plugs on the various web services. In the near future, some more will inevitably appear, but a larger growth will require increase of electric cars.

In November 2016, the Finnish government set the goal of 250,000 plug-in cars and 50,000 biogas cars on the road by 2030. These goals are part of the Finnish government efforts to comply with the 2015 Paris Agreement. The development in Northern and sparsely populate region of Kainuu, participating e-MOPOLI project, has been slow but is speeding up.

There were 73 061 inhabitants in the Kainuu region in end of year 2018, and altogether 38 833 passenger cars in traffic in spring 2019, so there were about 0,53 cars per inhabitant and 1,4 cars in each household. Total amount of EV’s, including battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles is still quite low (total of 61, spring 2019). There probably are as many reasons for this as there are car owners in Kainuu, but the biggest factors being the costly prices of electric cars, insufficient level of knowledge about the technology, and also the aging population of Kainuu and the suspicions of older generation related to changing into new technology. You may see the details of EV amounts on the following tables.

Pictures: Empty charging point at Katinkulta Resort by M. Mustonen. Wintry situation at Anorak Society charging point by K. Kemppainen

Until recent months, the publically available web services have shown only a few charging points around the region. Now the maps are showing many more charging points, and there are comparably many charging points compared to the amount of EV’s. In the area of some Kainuu municipalities there are many charging possibilities available for EV owners, in some none at the moment.

The majority of electric cars driving around the region at the moment belong to tourists. As the national road 5 running through the region and the major tourist destinations already have charging points, a stronger development in the sector would require raising consumer awareness and interest to buy electric cars. However, single charging stations are built according to the demand. At the moment, there is at least a plan for a new charging station to be built at the Kajaani market place.

Various Operators, Commercial Chains and Web Services

There are several techniques and numerous commercial operators offering electric car charging services around Finland. There also are several web services in Finland portraying the electric car charging points. Therefore it takes a bit time to map these services in a comprehensive way. Some examples of bigger groups building their national charging networks are ABC traffic stations, Prisma hypermarkets and the Kesko Retail Group. There are also some private companies offering this kind of services, such as the Anorak Society restaurant in Kajaani.