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Electric Vehicles

Electric Car Drivers Plugged In About 1.04 Million Times on Portugal's Mobi.E Network in October, a Third More Than a Year Earlier

Portugal's public Mobi.E network logged about 1,042,000 charging sessions in October, 33 percent more than a year earlier and the fourth month in a row above a million, as connected charging points passed 16,360 and the regulator's fee cut awaits a final decision.

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Written in English, with the help of AI tools, from the Portuguese sources named in this story. How we work

Electric Car Drivers Plugged In About 1.04 Million Times on Portugal's Mobi.E Network in October, a Third More Than a Year Earlier
A Mobi.E charging point in Alcochete. Photo: Resende13, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Electric car drivers charged about 1,042,000 times on Portugal's public Mobi.E network in October, 33 percent more than in October 2025, according to figures published by MOBI.E, the company that runs the national charging platform. It was the fourth month in a row above one million sessions. It was not a record, though: MOBI.E's August release put that month at more than 1.1 million, the most ever.

For residents who drive electric, or are thinking of it, the numbers show a public network that is busier every month and still growing, with fees set to fall in January if the energy regulator confirms its proposal.

What the October figures show

  • Energy: more than 24,000 megawatt-hours were drawn from the network, 41 percent more than a year earlier.
  • Users: almost 254,000 different users charged during the month, counted by the cards and apps they used, up 94 percent year on year.
  • Charging points: at the end of October about 16,360 charging points were connected to the network, up from 15,858 at the end of August.
  • Fast charging: on 31 October more than 3,420 charging stations offered fast or ultra-fast charging, about 41.6 percent of the total, against 39.8 percent at the end of August.

MOBI.E also estimates that October's charging avoided more than 19,850 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, and more than 180,000 tonnes over the first ten months of the year.

The figures cover the "rede conectada", the part of the public network linked to MOBI.E's central platform. Its Mobi.Data portal carries the monthly indicators.

Demand is running well ahead of forecasts

The growth has outpaced the regulator's own planning. In its 2027 tariff proposal of 15 October, ERSE (Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos, the energy regulator) said the network handled more than 8.89 million charging sessions in 2025 and that it now expects about 11.8 million in 2026, 79 percent more than the 6.58 million it had assumed when setting this year's fees.

New-car sales point the same way: fully electric cars took 44.9 percent of the new-car market in October.

What it means for you

  • Network fees should fall in January, but this is not final yet. ERSE has proposed cutting the fees paid for using the MOBI.E platform by 52.1 percent for charging suppliers and point operators and by 51.3 percent for owners of charging points. In ERSE's worked example that saves about 15 cents per 100 kilometres, as we reported on 17 October. ERSE's board approves the final tariffs after an opinion from its tariff council; as of 9 November no final decision appears among ERSE's published communiqués.
  • The rules are changing over time. Under Decreto-Lei n.º 155/2026, the transition to Portugal's new electric mobility regime runs until 31 December 2027. Until then, operators must tell the platform manager if they want to take some or all of their charging points off the MOBI.E platform; points stay connected unless they do, ERSE says.
  • Fast charging is easier to find. More than four in ten stations on the connected network now offer fast or ultra-fast charging, which matters most on long trips.

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