The rapid growth of electric cars is often blamed for putting more pressure on electricity grids. But a new Dutch analysis suggests the biggest problem is not simply how many EVs are plugged in, but how many start charging at the same time.

Mobility provider Shuttel analyzed almost two million charging sessions from around 25,000 business users in the Netherlands in 2025.

Almost 20% of them started charging between 7 and 9 a.m., when they arrived at work. Later that day, a second charging peak emerged between 4 and 7 p.m. Notably, relatively few new charging sessions started between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Overlap

The effect is cumulative. A typical session in Shuttel’s dataset delivers around 27 kWh and lasts about 2.5 hours at 11 kW. Cars plugged in between 07:30 and 09:00 therefore continue charging well into the morning, creating an overlap that can make the actual load highest around 10:00.

The greatest strain on the electricity grid therefore does not occur when cars are plugged in, but rather when multiple charging sessions overlap.

“Many cars sit idle at the office for hours, whereas the average charging session takes much less time. By spreading the charging process across that period of inactivity, the car can still be ready to go at the end of the day, while the peak load on the grid is reduced,” explains Bart Horstman, a mobility specialist at Shuttel.

Spread consumption

According to Shuttel, the next step in electric driving lies not only in expanding the electricity grid but, above all, in making smarter use of existing capacity.

By staggering the start times of charging sessions and distributing them more effectively across available periods of vehicle downtime, grid peaks can be smoothed out relatively easily – without requiring drivers to change their travel habits or drive electric vehicles less.

For Belgium, the findings are especially relevant. Company cars dominate the country’s EV transition: 89% of newly registered BEVs in 2025 were company cars. Office car parks full of 11 kW wallboxes can therefore create exactly the kind of morning peak Shuttel describes.

Flanders already tries to discourage such behavior financially. With a digital meter, part of the distribution bill is based on the highest average 15-minute power peak each month.

In 2026, one kilowatt of capacity costs on average about €53.39 per year excluding VAT. Fluvius explicitly advises EV and heat-pump users to spread high-power consumption.

European lesson

But there is a catch. The Flemish capacity tariff rewards an individual household for flattening its own peak, not necessarily for consuming when the local grid has spare capacity.

If thousands of EV owners all program their cars to start at the same cheap hour, one collective peak may simply be replaced by another. Wallonia has chosen a clearer time signal. Since January 2026, its standard dual tariff includes off-peak hours from 11:00 to 17:00 as well as from 22:00 to 07:00.

Other European countries go further. In Germany, for instance, grid operators may temporarily reduce the power available to controllable devices such as EV chargers and heat pumps when a local grid risks overloading, while still guaranteeing at least 4.2 kW. Consumers receive lower network charges in return.

The European lesson is increasingly clear. More EVs undeniably mean more electricity demand, but annual energy consumption alone does not overload a neighborhood transformer. Power, timing, and coincidence do.

Europe may therefore not need grids capable of charging every future EV at maximum power simultaneously. It increasingly needs millions of cars and chargers capable of deciding when not to charge.