Image: Interparking
The Current Interview
We have already researched and written a number of pieces on electric vehicle technology, particularly battery technology. At the same time, the day-to-day use of electric vehicles is just as important to people, which makes charging and charging infrastructure equally relevant whenever we talk about batteries. That naturally includes parking electric vehicles in parking garages and underground car parks. What role do battery technology and battery storage systems play in this context, and how might that change in the future?
With that in mind, we spoke to Roland Cracco, CEO of Interparking, one of the largest operator of parking garages and underground car parks in Europe. S.A. Interparking N.V. is a Belgian parking management company headquartered in Brussels. It operates subsidiaries in fourteen European countries and in Chile, managing more than 2,000 parking facilities with roughly eight hundred thousand parking spaces. In Germany and Austria, Interparking operates through its subsidiary Contipark.
Mr Cracco, are there any fundamental concerns about parking electric vehicles in parking garages or underground car parks?
Absolutely not. On the contrary, the future of mobility will be increasingly electric. We can already see that in the growing number of electric vehicles using our parking facilities. It does not matter whether they are battery electric vehicles (BEVs) or plug-in hybrids. It is up to us to create the right conditions so that these vehicles can park safely, be charged while parked, and so that we are well prepared in the event of an accident or fire. That involves both technology and the organisation of parking operations.
Who exactly is Interparking, and what role do you play in the European mobility landscape?
Since its founding in 1958, Interparking has enjoyed a successful development. The company was founded by Claude De Clercq in Brussels, and its headquarters remain in the heart of Europe.
For more than six decades, Interparking has been providing customer-focused parking solutions across Europe. Early on, we recognised that drivers wanted more than just a parking space. They were looking for a seamless customer experience. Interparking delivers that through clear information, personal service and innovative technology that makes parking easier and more convenient. Today, that also includes charging electric vehicles.
Before we turn to the more challenging issues in parking garages, let us look at something else first: beyond parking garages and underground car parks in cities, does Interparking have any further plans in the area of public parking?
Yes, of course. We do not want to limit ourselves to what already exists; we want to continue expanding our services. Right now, for example, in our Joint Venture with Deutsche Bahn (DB Bahnpark) about parking projects at railway stations, we are currently analysing the potential of these carparks. These locations bring together a wide range of customer needs, from short-stay users such as taxis and people picking someone up, to long-term parkers leaving their cars for several hours or even several days while on business trips, holidays or day trips. Secure parking, a range of vehicle-related services, simple and transparent payment systems and, of course, EV charging, all of that is highly attractive to us and exactly what drives us forward.
Let us stay with electric vehicles: providing the necessary charging capacity during a parking period, whether quickly or over several hours or days, will clearly require a great deal of energy. How do you see that?
We already know that energy demand will vary significantly depending on the situation and the time of day, and that very large amounts of energy will have to be available at certain times. Centralised grids can only guarantee that to a limited extent. That is why we advocate more decentralised energy generation and on-site storage. If we can avoid wasting renewable electricity and instead collect and store it in intelligent storage systems for later use, that would be a major step forward and would make grid expansion much more cost-effective.
If we understand you correctly, the parking sector is also facing a major transformation, from being simply a provider of parking space to becoming a wider service provider centred on the car. Can you manage that on your own?
Yes and no. The transformation in our sector has already begun and is continuing to gather pace. But we cannot manage it alone, which is why we are looking for partners with whom we can combine interests and expertise. We can learn a great deal from one another, develop new services and significantly increase both the use of electric vehicles and customer interest in them. It is a symbiotic relationship, if you like, in which everyone stands to benefit.
What exactly do you need or want from potential partnerships?
As I mentioned, this is about areas such as decentralised renewable energy generation, decentralised energy storage, energy distribution systems that can supply dozens of charging points from a single source depending on time requirements and state of charge, and standardised billing systems for parking, charging and related services. It is also about fire protection, specialised extinguishing systems, new charging technologies, staff training, integrating vehicle batteries into an overall energy system within the parking facility and, not least, AI-supported software systems for the intelligent management of such complex process chains.
What role, then, does DC fast charging play?
In a city-center car park, DC charging in the 50 kW range makes far more sense for our type of customers than deploying ultra-high-power (HPC) 300–400 kW systems. A 50 kW charger delivers roughly 50 kWh in one hour, which perfectly matches the behaviour of our short-stay customers—shoppers, cinema or restaurant visitors, and other urban users who typically remain parked between 45 and 90 minutes.
By contrast, HPC chargers in the 300–400 kW class are primarily suited to highly concentrated mobility hubs—locations such as highways, railway stations, major retail complexes, or large-scale transit nodes where vehicles stop very briefly and require extremely rapid energy intake. These installations require:
- very high grid capacity,
- dedicated electrical infrastructure,
- and a business case driven mainly by long-distance mobility rather than urban parking patterns.
They are therefore not the natural standard for dense city-center car parks, where dwell times are longer and infrastructure constraints are tighter.
At Interparking, we will always adapt our charging strategy to the real needs and usage profiles of our customers. In that sense, DC charging around 50 kW offers the ideal balance:
- fast enough to deliver meaningful energy in a short stay,
- efficient and user-friendly,
- and technically feasible within the constraints of inner-city facilities.
Even though fast charging remains relatively costly and technically complex today, its potential advantages in our applications are clear. That is why we continue to build expertise and partnerships that will enable us to deploy the right DC solutions across Europe, aligned with local infrastructure and customer demand.
Two final issues that will certainly be of interest to our readers. A vehicle fire on the sixth basement level or the sixth upper level of a parking facility is not something we would care to imagine. Are you prepared for that?
Yes, we are. From an organisational point of view, we already try to assign parking spaces for electric vehicles according to specific local conditions. But the share of electric vehicles will continue to grow, and at some point spatial organisation alone will no longer be enough. The highest possible safety standards will have to be ensured everywhere.
In April 2024, we closed one of our major city-center car parks in Brussels for ten weeks to host extensive training sessions for more than 800 firefighters. The primary participants were teams from the Brussels Fire Brigade, but several other regional fire zones also attended to observe or actively train their procedures.
The conclusions from these ten weeks of exercises were later consolidated and presented during our first International Firefighter Congress in November 2024. During this event, we also integrated newly available insights from the recent car park fires at Luton Airport and Stavanger Airport. This year we will organise the congress in November 2026.
A key observation across all these cases was consistent: BEVs were neither the cause of the fire nor an accelerator of it. Instead, fire safety experts identified other contributing factors, such as strong winds, delayed or insufficient fire detection, and specific building-related fire-resistance issues.
Following these learnings, we initiated a comprehensive risk analysis across our network of 2,000 car parks, assessing structural stability and fire safety. Based on the outcomes of these assessments, we will take full responsibility in planning and executing the necessary improvement works.
Ultimately, this is what matters most: our responsibility towards the safety of the customers who visit our car parks and the employees who work in them.
At the same time, I am very confident that future battery technologies will make such critical scenarios far less likely. Advances in battery chemistry will change a great deal.
And what about clearing an EV charging space once the charging process has been completed?
Managing the proper use of EV charging spaces is not just a technical challenge — it is equally a matter of educating and guiding our customers. We have seen this before. About ten years ago, many drivers parked in disabled parking spaces without considering that these spots were specifically designed to help someone who genuinely needed them. Over time, with better communication, clearer signage, and consistent reminders, behaviour improved significantly.
We are facing a similar situation today with EV charging bays. People do not always realise that an EV charging space is not just a parking spot — it is a functional resource designed to deliver energy, not simply provide convenience. Helping them understand this is where we need to step up.
That means:
- Better communication at strategic touchpoints
- Improved lighting so charging bays are clearly visible
- Vocal messages inside the car park guiding users
- Posters and signage in elevators and walkways
- And when needed, targeted enforcement to ensure fairness and availability
Education is essential, but so is managing expectations regarding clearing a charging bay once the vehicle is fully charged. In a city-center or long-stay environment, this remains exceptionally difficult. Customers may be away for hours — at work, at a hotel, in a cinema — and it is simply not feasible for them to move their vehicle.
That sounds like a huge task, one that calls for national and European networks to step in. At TraWeBa, this is exactly where we can help.
And we urgently need that support. Battery technology and the modern vehicle systems associated with it require European thinking and European action. At the moment, projects in Germany are still taking too long. But together, we can become significantly faster and more agile.
Thank you very much for this insightful conversation. We would be delighted to return to the topic at a later stage and explore it again in the light of new developments. The Editorial Team
