Spain's electric-mobility association published its latest charging count and the number went down. AEDIVE put the country at 52,746 operational public charging points on 1 September 2026. In March the same association counted 52,985.
Nothing was torn out of the ground. AEDIVE changed what it is willing to call operational.
What changed in the counting
The association now removes duplicate records, installations that are no longer active, and operators who do not keep their data current. It has also struck off older equipment that fails newer requirements on payment and interoperability — the rules that decide whether a driver can start a session with a bank card or a roaming app instead of a membership tied to one network.
That makes the September figure stricter than the March one, and the two are not directly comparable. Measured against the close of 2025, AEDIVE reports growth of 5.49%.
A count that falls while the network grows is an awkward thing to publish, and it is more useful than the number it replaced. A charge point that is listed but dead is worse than one that was never listed, because a driver routes to it.
Where the network is actually growing
Power, not count, is the part worth reading. On the same end-2025 basis as the headline figure:
| Power band | Change |
|---|---|
| 50–150 kW | +7.42% |
| 150–350 kW | +22.50% |
| Above 350 kW | +10.38% |
The 150–350 kW band grew three times faster than the band below it. That is the band a long-distance driver actually meets on a Spanish motorway, and it is where a modern EV spends the useful part of its charging curve.
Distribution remains lopsided. Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia and the Valencian Community hold close to 59% of Spain's installed public charging between them.
What it means for a Tesla driver
Spain has long been the gap in a European road trip — the country where the map looked thinner than the traffic justified. These figures say that is changing at the top end of the power range rather than at the bottom, which is the right end for anyone crossing the country rather than commuting in it.
The interoperability clause matters more than it sounds. Tesla drivers in Spain use far more than Superchargers, and the equipment AEDIVE has just de-listed is exactly the kind that accepts one operator's app and nothing else. Culling it from the official count does not add a single charger, but it makes the remaining number mean something — and it puts pressure on operators who would rather advertise a site than maintain it.