Charging Compared

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Fastned: what it is like to use

Distinctive solar-canopy stations, mostly at motorway junctions and increasingly in cities.

Updated 2 min read 8 citations

Rows of parked cars in a large open airport car park
Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Where Fastned sits among the operators we profile Fastned is national / regional in scope and in the high (150-250 kw) power tier; of the 14 operators profiled, several share each of those characteristics. All profiled14 operatorsSame scope11 operatorsSame power tier7 operators
Fastned is national / regional, high (150-250 kw). This is a map of the landscape, not a score — operator profiles are qualitative, and inventing a numeric rating to rank them against each other would be false precision of exactly the kind this site exists to avoid. Operator profiles in data/charging-networks.mjs — 14 operators.

Character

Distinctive solar-canopy stations, mostly at motorway junctions and increasingly in cities.

Where it is strong

Strong reputation for reliability and clear pricing, with contactless payment widely accepted. Research into public charging user experience consistently finds availability and successful session start dominate satisfaction, ahead of raw power [1][2].

What to watch for

Coverage is deep in the Benelux and thinner the further south and east you go.

Type 2 and CCS Combo 2 connectors compared The Type 2 connector has seven pins in a rounded housing with a flattened top and handles alternating current up to twenty-two kilowatts. CCS Combo 2 is the same Type 2 housing with two large direct-current pins added directly below it, and handles rapid charging from fifty to three hundred and fifty kilowatts. Type 2 AC — up to 22 kW Every European AC point CCS Combo 2 DC rapid — 50 to 350 kW Every European rapid charger plus DC pins
CCS is Type 2 with two DC pins bolted underneath. That is why the connector is never your problem anywhere in Europe: your car's socket accepts both, the top half is identical, and a rapid charger simply uses the extra pins. What differs at a border is payment, not the plug. Drawn to relative scale; pin arrangement follows IEC 62196-2.
Free-standing charging station beside a road in an Austrian alpine village
D-Kuru · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Why there is no price here

A charging session involves the operator, your mobility service provider and any roaming platform between them, each taking a margin. The same physical charger can therefore bill you three different amounts depending on whether you tapped a bank card, used the operator app, or presented a third-party roaming card. Those tariffs also change several times a year and differ by country.

Publishing a figure here would be wrong within months and misleading immediately. Check the current price in the operator app before you plug in — and if it bills per minute rather than per kilowatt-hour, remember that a cold pack or a high state of charge means you pay for the taper.

Where does Fastned operate?
Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, UK, Switzerland. Coverage within that is uneven, so check your specific route rather than assuming national coverage.
How fast is Fastned?
High (up to 300 kW). What you actually get depends on your car, the state of charge and the pack temperature as much as on the charger.
How much does it cost?
We deliberately do not publish tariffs — they change too often to be safe in a static page. Check the operator app before plugging in.
Will my roaming card work?
It depends on the agreement between your provider and this operator in that country. Carry a second card from a different provider.

References

Every citation below links to the original peer-reviewed record on PubMed or via DOI. Nothing here is a substitute for medical advice.

  1. Electric Vehicle User Behavior: An Analysis of Charging Station Utilization in Canada Jonas T, Daniels N, Macht G · Energies · 2023 · Journal article DOI
  2. Resilience of urban public electric vehicle charging infrastructure to flooding Raman G, Raman G, Peng J · Nature Communications · 2022 · Journal article DOI
  3. Innovative Application of the Public–Private Partnership Model to the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in China Yang T, Long R, Li W, et al. · Sustainability · 2016 · Journal article DOI
  4. User Experience of Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Shanghai: A Quantitative Analysis Xie X, Raval S, Deb S · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  5. Interpretable Station-Level Charging Congestion Pressure Assessment and Multi-Horizon Early Warning for Electric-Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Shi K · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  6. City-Scale Optimization of Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: Spatio-Temporal Demand Forecasting, Graph Learning and Multi-Objective Siting Thango B, Ayetor G · World Electric Vehicle Journal · 2026 · Journal article DOI
  7. Cost and Availability Optimization for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure via Redundancy‐Spares‐Repair Integration Najdawi F, Fainman E, Jin T · Quality and Reliability Engineering International · 2025 · Journal article DOI
  8. Optimal Planning for Public Charging Infrastructure by Behaviour‐Based Electric Vehicle Charging Demand Simulations and Geographic Information System Sirisumrannukul S, Prakobkaew P, Piamvilai N · IET Smart Grid · 2025 · Journal article DOI