New electric vehicles and charging stations will receive 85 million kunas in grants.
“Next year, we plan to invest about 85 million kunas during just the first quarter of the year. The funds will be spent exclusively on electric vehicle subsidies and for necessary infrastructure development,” said Ljubomir Majdandžić, the acting director of the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund, at the conference “Impact of Technology on Mobility Development”, which was held in Zagreb, reports Jutarnji List on September 12, 2017.
The fund has already provided about 50 million kunas in subsidies, which helped buyers purchase about 1,420 electric and hybrid vehicles. In order to increase interest in electric vehicles, it is necessary to invest more in the development of charging stations network in Croatia.
“We need to have 60 such charging stations for 3,000 kilometres of motorways which we have in Croatia. That would cost about 12 million kunas”, said Majdandžić.
In Croatia, there are currently about 200 charging stations, according to Dino Novosel, head of E-Mobility at Croatian Telecom. However, this figure is not nearly enough for Croatia to be prepared for electric vehicles of the future.
“If Croatia does not invest enough funds in an adequate electric vehicle infrastructure system, we could face a complete system collapse in just a few years. By 2030, as many as 35 percent of new vehicles will be charged electrically,” said Branko Kondić, the executive director of the LMG Autokuća company.
Translated from Jutarnji List.
