Clean fuel infrastructure
Consumers will not buy expensive electric vehicles if they fear that the distances they can travel will be limited by an absence of recharging or refuelling facilities.
Providing an adequate network of recharging stations is a prerequisite for the mass take-up of road vehicles powered by electricity or other low-emission fuels. Consumers will not buy expensive electric vehicles if they fear that the distances they can travel will be limited by an absence of recharging or refuelling facilities. The challenge for the alternative-fuel industry and policymakers is to break the vicious circle whereby the necessary investment in infrastructure does not take place because of the low take-up of vehicles powered by types of alternative fuel.
The European Commission made a bold attempt to break this logjam in January 2013 with a proposal for alternative-fuel infrastructure that would have required member states to provide recharging and refuelling stations at specific distances. It proposed refuelling points for compressed natural gas every 150 kilometres by 2020 and every 400km for liquefied natural gas. It also included proposals to standardise recharging points for electric vehicles. Across all countries, the benefits of climate change from greater use of electric vehicles will depend on how the electricity is being generated.
Several member states found the Commission’s approach too prescriptive. One member state official dealing with transport issues likened the proposal to Soviet-era “central planning”. The national governments resolved in March to strip out from the legislation the specific targets that the Commission had proposed. Instead, the national authorities will be required to draw up national plans for infrastructure development and submit them to the Commission.
If the Commission assesses that the national plans do not go far enough to provide a pan-European network for alternative fuels, it will have the right to propose binding targets. The provisions on standardisation were maintained.
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The impetus for greater take-up of clean-fuel-powered vehicles will therefore come from national plans. Germany, for example, has set a target of putting one million electric-powered vehicles on its roads by 2020. Sales of electric vehicles are increasing, from a very low base. Vehicles remain expensive compared to models propelled by traditional hydrocarbon fuel. One estimate puts the share of battery-powered and hybrid vehicles in western European car sales at 0.5% in 2014. Tax incentives continue to play a major role in boosting sales of electric vehicles. In the Netherlands, tax breaks did help sales of electric vehicles, but purchases slumped when those incentives were withdrawn at the end of last year.
Simon Taylor