How electric cars become electricity storage and what is still necessary for this.
As of 31 May, Austria is purely mathematically dependent on energy imports, as the Austrian Energy Agency pointed out in a press conference. The transport sector is one of the biggest levers to reduce this dependency. E-mobility plays a central role here, from flexible charging to bidirectional storage to electric heavy traffic.
A key driver of this dependency is traffic: In 2025, 104 TWh of oil products were consumed in Austria, 85 percent of them in the transport sector. This is where e-mobility comes in. It shifts energy consumption away from fossil imports towards electricity, and thus into an area in which Austria already has high renewable shares and can use further expansion potential.
"The special feature of e-mobility is not only clean and often cost-effective driving, but above all its central contribution to the energy transition. Without large-scale electric vehicles, this transformation will be much harder to achieve", says Ute Teufelberger, Managing Director of e-vo eMobility GmbH, who was a guest at the press conference.
Electric cars become part of the energy system
Electric vehicles can play an active role in the energy system in the future. Through intelligent and flexible charging, electricity can be used exactly when a lot of renewable energy is available. This helps to stabilize networks, reduce peak loads and reduce costs.
The graph shows which times are most often charged privately and in the workplace. If you adjust the charging times to the hours with the favorable electricity prices (orange), you can save significantly costs.
The prerequisites for this are already being created today: In Austria, there are around 37,000 public charging points and an estimated 200,000 wallboxes. "From this point of view, the infrastructure in Austria is very good, also in a European comparison", emphasises Teufelberger.
The potential is even greater with bidirectional charging. In this case, e-cars can not only absorb electricity, but also, if necessary, return it to buildings or to the grid in the future. A modern electric car with around 80 kilowatt-hours of storage capacity can, half-charged, supply a single-family house with electricity for about three days. This makes the vehicle a flexible storage system, especially in combination with photovoltaics and dynamic electricity tariffs.
However, in order for bidirectional charging to be rolled out broadly, clear framework conditions are required: standardized technical protocols between vehicle, charging point and energy dealer as well as appropriate market rules and contract models.
Heavy traffic before the turning point
Rising energy prices and technological advances are also making electric trucks more and more economical. According to industry data, the break-even is around 30 cents per kilowatt hour. Especially for transport and logistics companies, predictable, efficient loading is becoming a decisive factor. Depot charging, intelligent load management and transparent energy costs can make the switch to electric fleets much easier.
By the end of 2025, almost 18,000 electric trucks had already been registered in Austria, and by the end of April 2026, a further 1,611 new vehicles had been added.
The more traffic is driven by domestically produced renewable electricity, the less fossil energy needs to be imported. At the same time, more value creation remains in the country. For a successful mobility turnaround, vehicles, recharging points, power generation and grids must work together. This is exactly where e-vo comes in with solutions that make e-mobility easy to use and integrate it into the energy system of the future.
Here you can read the press release of the Austrian Energy Agency dated 29 May 2026.
The e-vo eMobility GmbH. is Austria's leading technology provider for e-mobility and charging services. The joint venture of seven renowned Austrian energy suppliers and municipal utilities combines decades of experience, comprehensive expertise in the energy industry and first-class technical know-how. e-vo eMobility GmbH develops mobile energy solutions with the aim of making e-mobility easy to use for everyone. www.e-vo.at
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