Twenty-Seven of Forty EU-Funded Charging Posts Remain Uninstalled in the Azores, and Broken Ones Still Show as Operational in the Apps

Twenty-seven of the 40 electric-vehicle charging posts the Azores bought with European money have still not been installed, and some of those in the ground have been failing for months while mobile apps continue to list them as operational. That is the picture set out by the Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) in a formal request filed on Saturday in the Azorean regional parliament, asking the Governo Regional dos Açores (Azores Regional Government), a PSD, CDS-PP and PPM coalition, for an account of the state of the network and a calendar for the missing posts.

The numbers on the table

About 6,000 electric vehicles are circulating in the Azores, according to figures the party attributes to the Direção Regional da Energia (Regional Directorate for Energy). The Regional Government says there are 99 publicly accessible charging points connected to the grid. The Bloco's argument is that the second number does not describe the first one's experience: significant on paper, it says, but not functional coverage, "given the high number of inoperative pieces of equipment or ones with prolonged faults".

The party calls months of failures at several fast-charging points across the islands a serious concern, and adds a specific complaint about information: some of this equipment still appears as "operational" in the mobile apps drivers rely on, "misleading users".

The 27 posts that never left the box

The sharpest figure concerns the European project. The posts acquired under LIFE IP CLIMAZ, an EU-co-financed climate programme run in the Azores under the reference LIFE19 IPC/PT/000004, were contracted in 2023 as an expansion that would take the archipelago's network to 87 points. Of the 40 units bought, the Bloco says 27 remain uninstalled.

The Regional Government's explanation is that the equipment was handed to municipalities under comodato contracts, a loan-for-use arrangement, with the councils that expressed interest responsible for installing it at public-access sites agreed in advance. The party's answer is that this makes the execution calendar in each contract, and the mechanisms for monitoring it, the thing that needs disclosing. It points to Ponta Delgada, where the installation of 11 charging posts was protocolled in 2023 and, it says, has still not happened. What is going on in the other municipalities, it adds, is unknown.

The Bloco also notes that around 90 percent of the equipment currently working came from direct intervention by the Azores Government, which in its reading puts maintenance and continuous operation squarely on the region. Posts that have not worked for months, "some with visibly deteriorated structures", demonstrate "serious failures of supervision, planning and contractual oversight".

Why an island network fails differently

On the mainland a broken charger is an inconvenience, because another one is usually a few kilometres away. On São Miguel, Terceira or Pico the geometry is unforgiving: a single dead fast charger can remove the only viable stop on a route, and there is no driving to the next region. That is why the reliability of the app data matters more here than almost anywhere in Portugal.

The backdrop is a country pushing hard on electrification. Mainland buyers have been drawing on the Fundo Ambiental incentive for electric vehicles, and an electric model has now topped a full month of Portuguese car sales. How the public network works, tariffs included, is set out in our guide to electric vehicle charging in Portugal. The request also lands in an autumn where the region is absorbing a 20 million euro VAT shortfall and a further 33 million from how its income per head is measured.

What this means for you

• Do not trust a single app in the Azores. Cross-check a charger against a second source before you build a day around it, and treat "operational" as a claim rather than a fact.
• Renting electric on the islands needs a plan B. Ask the rental company which posts near your route it knows to be working, and keep enough range to reach an alternative.
• If you live in one of the municipalities, the comodato is the lever. The equipment is bought and already in the council's hands, so installation is a local decision and a local political question.
• Slow charging is the reliable fallback. Where fast posts are out, an overnight AC charge at your accommodation covers most island driving, because daily distances are short.

A requerimento obliges the Regional Government to answer in parliament. The Bloco has asked for four things: the state of the public network, the contractual maintenance mechanisms, the installation deadlines for the equipment financed with European funds, and immediate measures to get the infrastructure fully working. The answer will show whether 27 uninstalled posts are a scheduling problem or a stalled one.

Feature image: a Mobi.E public charging post at Alcochete, on the mainland. Photograph by Resende13, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.