SYRIZA: “How many cycles of ‘I Move Electric’ must pass in order to be designed correctly?”

A joint statement was made by the deputy of B ‘Thessaloniki and Head of Environment & Energy of K.O. of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, S. Famellos and the MP of Florina and Deputy Head of Environment & Energy P. Perkas for the program ‘I move Electricly’.

Their announcement

The start of the second cycle of ‘I Move Electricly’ in April was announced on 02.02.2022 by the Minister of Environment & Energy. However, in contrast to the festive atmosphere and the optimism radiated by RIS, until today ‘I move Electricly’ has not served its purpose, a fact that is confirmed by the quantitative data.

The political leadership of the Ministry triumphs for the 19,000 applications of the first cycle, which, however, reflect the initial interest and not the approvals and the absorption. Let RIS announce what is the absorption so far in comparison with the announcement of Mitsotakis for 100 million euros in 2021.

The first cycle ended with the electric bike as the absolute ruler. However, the electrification of transport is achieved starting from the vehicles that are already circulating on the road, ie the cars. And there the figures are not at all encouraging, since, as we are informed, only 10% of the total budget of the first cycle was given for the purchase of an electric car.

Despite the few cars purchased through ‘Moving Electric’, 2021 was a “record year for the registration of electric vehicles”, as Mr. Skrekas stressed and in fact “the target in ESEK was exceeded by 186%”. This proves that electric cars are only for the very high income categories, which is why very few took advantage of the ‘I Move Electric’ subsidy, since they had the opportunity to buy the electric car of their choice without a subsidy. It remains to be seen whether the 10% increase in the subsidy for the purchase of an electric car in the second cycle will be enough for more people to change their conventional car to an electric one.

Nevertheless, the “bet” in the course of the electrification of transport is to start with public transport, commercial vehicles, trucks and taxis, ie vehicles that do many kilometers every day, to move to corporate, to end up in private vehicles.

SYRIZA PS has pointed out the significant lack of planning in the first cycle of ‘I Move Electrically’, something that continues in the second cycle. There is no reference to public transport, while from the tender of the Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport we do not expect to see electric buses even in 2022. No reference also to trucks and supply chain vehicles, while strong financial incentives should be given due to the high costs for fleet electrification. As far as taxis are concerned, a separate Program has been announced by the Recovery Fund, but with a small quantitative footprint. The failure of the taxi program is also evident from the failure of the first cycle, with electric taxi sales being measured on the fingers, making it clear that the subsidy was particularly low for the already troubled industry.

Let us also not forget the long delays in the implementation program of the Electric Vehicle Charging Plans (SFIO), where it should have been completed a year ago and instead, we are counting extensions.

It is therefore obvious that the government is also dealing with the issue of e-mobility in purely communicative terms, since instead of evaluating the first cycle of ‘I Move Electricly’, it is proceeding to increase the subsidies of the individual categories, ie it simply “distributes money”, while Strategic planning is a concept unknown to them. Much more is needed for the penetration of e-mobility in the transport sector and we do not know how many cycles of the Program must pass in order for this to be realized by the political leadership of the Ministry of Environment and Energy.

Source: Capital

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