The number of electric cars has grown significantly in recent times. Around 77,000 cars with electric drives, including plug-in hybrids, were registered in Munich in mid-December 2022, and there are likely to be even more now. In order to keep the growing electric fleet running, more and more charging stations are needed.
There are currently around 1,500 of these in Munich, most of which are operated by Stadtwerke München. Henrik Thiele, head of Qwello, which would also like to set up charging stations in Munich, thinks that is far too few. Only: The city, more precisely the Department for Climate and Environmental Protection (RKU), will not let them – even though Qwello would set up the columns free of charge and the selected locations would be suitable according to their own statements.
Qwello now wants to fight for the right to set up 1,677 charging stations and has filed a lawsuit with the administrative court. The company considers the refusal of the Munich administration to be illegal. The city would like to leave the field to a single provider and therefore launched a tender for the construction of 2700 charging stations in 2020, which is still not over. Qwello only submitted a bid to the city in June 2022 and requested that columns be erected. That, according to the Berlin law firm BBH, which represents the RKU, is in “direct contradiction to the tender that is still ongoing”.
Among other things, BBH relies on an almost 23-year-old ruling by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in North Rhine-Westphalia on the special use of public roads, after which the granting of exclusive rights is not unusual and “recognized by the highest court”. But the Munich lawyer Benno Ziegler, legal counsel for Qwello, does not accept that. The same court, he explained at a press conference on Friday, had changed its case law in 2021. In fact, the Higher Administrative Court ruled that it no longer adheres to the judgment from the year 2000 “in view of the principles on special road use that have been developed in case law since then”.
Allegedly, 4000 tons of CO₂ could be saved annually
This judgment of May 28, 2021 – is online under the file number 11A390/19 easy to find. The law firm BBH nevertheless relies on case law “that no longer exists today and never existed in Bavaria,” says Ziegler. He also gets certainty from a legal opinion from the University of Bayreuth, according to which Qwello is entitled to the approval. “Because of the purely traffic law character of the road and right of way, competition law aspects must not play a role in a discretionary error-free award decision on the granting of a special use permit,” says the report.
In other words, despite the tender, Qwello could set up its pillars. According to its own statements, the company loses annual income of more than 800,000 euros due to the refused approval, and a better charging infrastructure could also save 4,000 tons of CO₂ annually.
Qwello receives support from the Munich CSU. The City Council faction moved last August to allow private companies that don’t ask for grants to set up. There is no answer so far, criticizes CSU city councilor Andreas Babor, co-initiator of the application. This is not expected until May. “That’s shameful for the state capital,” he says. No comment was available from the RKU on Friday.