Winter sports enthusiasts traveling to the Austrian Alps by electric car must expect long queues at the charging stations along the way. It will be particularly busy near Frankfurt on Saturday 25 February, warns accountancy and consultancy organization KPMG, which advises charging the car before Cologne.
“In 2020, just before the outbreak of covid-19, we saw waiting times of sometimes 75 minutes per charging station. Queues are expected to be shorter, a maximum of 60 minutes, but be prepared,” says Stijn de Groen of KPMG. “The fast charging network in Germany may have been expanded, but the number of Dutch people with an electric car has grown much faster,” he explains.
Black Saturday
According to KPMG, between 8,000 and 10,000 electric vehicles will drive from the Netherlands to Austria in the coming holiday period. Black Saturday falls on February 25, when the spring break for the Central and Northern Netherlands has just started and the winter sports enthusiasts from the South of the Netherlands are returning home. “Our research shows that 90 percent of travelers want to depart between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. That means that both traffic flows will meet around Frankfurt,” says De Groen, who does indicate that the Germans will then not have a holiday themselves.
The ANWB warns all motorists that long traffic jams are expected towards the winter sports areas next weekend and the weekend after. Winter sports enthusiasts must therefore take into account traffic on the roads in southern Germany and just across the border in Austria on Saturday. In France there are traffic jams on the roads east of Lyon and the last kilometers to the ski resorts also take a lot of time.