The ‘directive for the deployment of the alternative fuels infrastructure’ sets a regulatory framework for the following fuels:
Electricity:
The directive requires Member States to set targets for recharging points accessible to the public, to be built by 2020, to ensure that electric vehicles can circulate at least in urban and suburban agglomerations. Targets should ideally allow a minimum of one recharging point per 10 electric vehicles. Moreover, the directive makes it mandatory to use a common plug all across the EU, allowing EU-wide mobility.
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG):
Natural gas/bio-methane vehicles already offer a well-developed technology, with performance and cost equivalent to petrol or diesel units and with clean exhaust emissions. Natural gas use in trucks and ships can substitute for diesel. For the development of LNG for road transport, Member States have to ensure a sufficient number of publicly accessible refuelling points, with common standards ideally every 400 km, to be built by end-2025. The directive also requires a minimum coverage to ensure accessibility of LNG in main maritime and inland ports.
Compressed Natural Gas (CNG):
The directive requires Member States to ensure a sufficient number of publicly accessible refuelling points, with common standards, to allow the circulation of CNG vehicles, both in urban and sub-urban areas as well as on the TEN-T core network, ideally every 150 km, to be built by end-2025.
Hydrogen:
The directive aims to ensure a sufficient number of publicly accessible refuelling points, with common standards, in the Member States that opt for hydrogen infrastructure, to be built by end-2025.
In addition, the directive requires that clear information is given to consumers about the fuels that can be used by a vehicle, using standardised labelling in vehicle manuals, at dealerships and on recharging and refuelling points. It also aims to provide clear information to users to compare alternative fuel prices with conventional fuel prices.Member States must also ensure that information about the geographical location of publicly accessible recharging and refuelling points is made available in an ‘open and non-discriminatory’ manner.
