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What is an electric car?
These vehicles are powered by an electric motor, which supplies and drives the battery, which can be charged from an external source, explained on website of the US Department of Energy.
They can be fully electric or hybrid, which includes vehicles that, in addition to the electric motor that draws energy from the battery, also have the option of using internal combustion fuel for movement.
Unlike electric cars, conventional cars operate exclusively using internal combustion engines that run on gasoline, diesel, gas, and other fuels.
Electric vehicles do not emit harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, because these energy sources are not burned.
As a result, fully electric cars do not have some classic components such as fuel tanks or exhausts.
How many in the Balkans drive on electricity, and how many in Europe?
The largest number of electric cars in Europe is in Germany, where 1,4 million fully electric and another million hybrid vehicles participate in traffic.
One million electric and 570.000 hybrid vehicles are driven in France, which puts this country in second place in Europe, and Great Britain is third with less than one million fully electric vehicles and another 560.000 hybrids.
Norway is in fourth place with 710.00 fully electric and 190.000 hybrid vehicles, which makes it the most successful in terms of the percentage representation of these types of vehicles.
This country is the leader in the world in terms of the share of electric vehicles in the total number of new vehicles sold with 82,4 percent.
Iz The country’s electric vehicle associations expect that share to grow to 95 percent in 2024 and that in 2025 these cars will completely take over the market.
By February 20, 2024, 2.699 fully electric vehicles and another 18.000 hybrid vehicles will be registered in Serbia, according to the Ministry of Interior, which is for Blumberg Adria television presented by the Secretary General of the Serbian Association of Vehicle and Parts Importers Boris Ćorović.
“The share of fully electric cars in Serbia is about one percent, and we are quite behind the average in the European Union, which is 12 to 14 percent,” added Ćorović.
In Croatia, the number of fully electric vehicles is “slightly higher than 7.000”, says Hrvoje Prpić.
“But last year, 2.500 new electric vehicles were sold, which is five percent of the total number,” says the president of the Circuit Circuit Association.
At the end of 2022, slightly less than 8.000 electric vehicles and 24.800 hybrids were registered in Slovenia, which then accounted for 2,7 percent of the total number of registered vehicles, they show official data.
In 2023, a total of 150 electric cars were registered in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with more than 200 charging stations for the batteries of these vehicles, according to the data reported by the Sarajevo newspaper Oslobođenje.
During that year, 240 electric vehicles were imported, which is almost four times more than in 2022, they announced from Administration for Indirect Taxation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
There are about 500 fully electric or hybrid cars on Montenegrin roads, but there is no data on how many fall into each of these two categories, the state Eco Fund announced. Energy portal.
A kilowatt in Europe, a minute in Serbia
While driving on German and European roads, Marko Mihaljević from Frankfurt thinks about the price of a kilowatt of electricity that he will pay at electric chargers, and it differs depending on where he will recharge the battery.
“For 100 kilometers of driving, I use about 16 or 17 kilowatts, and when charging at home, a kilowatt costs me about 30 cents – so, I drive 100 kilometers for about five euros.
“If I charge at public Tesla chargers, it will cost around six euros, and at other public chargers up to nine euros,” he recounts for the BBC his Serbian experience from Germany.
Marko’s family is originally from Croatia, so he often comes to the Balkans in his Tesla, where the prices at public chargers and under the conditions of home battery charging can be surprising.
At any public charger in Croatia, he did it completely free of charge until 2023.
Now, however, in that country, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a kilowatt of electricity for a car pays “a lot more than in Germany,” he adds.
But when he plugged in the charger in the homes of friends and relatives in those two Balkan countries, he was pleasantly surprised.
“In Bosnia, I paid about six cents for that one kilowatt, so it turns out that you can drive 100 kilometers for one euro,” he recounts enthusiastically.
For owners of electric cars in Serbia, the system is different from that of all European countries, because public charging stations are charged for minutes, not kilowatts of electricity.
Thus, in EU countries, they pay “what they spent”, in Serbia, a significantly higher price, says Nebojša Margetić.
Chargers and the companies that install them in Serbia do not have the legal right to measure and sell electricity, but it belongs only to Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS).
“The battery charges more slowly as a higher percentage is charged, but at the beginning I pay the same price as at the end, because time is charged, so the last 20 percent, which is 12 kilowatts, I pay with the same money as the first 30 kilowatts.
“Completely out of mind,” concludes the president of the Association “E-mobility” and the owner of two electric cars.
That is why “in 95 percent of cases” he uses a home charger, especially at night during the period of cheap electricity, for which he pays three dinars per kilowatt.
“Prices at public chargers depend on where you charge – on a slower charger with a speed of 50 kilowatts per hour, half an hour of charging costs slightly more than 800 dinars, and for a full battery it takes about an hour and a half, that is, 2.400 dinars, and with that money we exceed about 400 kilometers.
“At faster chargers, which are mostly on highways, that price is even higher,” he explains.
Mića Makarić, a restaurateur from the Belgrade neighborhood of Železnik, whose vehicles cover a large number of kilometers delivering food, therefore almost exclusively uses a private charger.
“The system of public chargers is very poorly designed and you can forget about them,” he told the BBC in Serbian.
“None of the bills say how many kilowatts you used and how much it costs per kilowatt, but it says that you were in someone’s parking lot for so many minutes and that parking lot costs accordingly, and that is a very expensive parking lot,” he says with a laugh. 51-year-old restaurateur.
Are there enough chargers in the Balkans?
The total number of public chargers for electric vehicles in Serbia is “between 120 and 130”, announced Boris Ćorović, Secretary General of the Serbian Association of Vehicle and Parts Importers, for Bloomberg Adria.
There is one public charging station per 100.000 inhabitants in Serbia, he added.
“In Europe, Norway leads with more than 580 chargers, in Germany there are over 200, in Slovenia 39, and in Croatia more than 40”, explained Ćorović.
Counting fully electric and hybrid cars, on average more than 159 such vehicles share one public charger.
This relationship could change since Goran Vesić, Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure in the Government of Serbia, announced the construction of 105 more charging stations on highways throughout Serbia from the end of 2024.
with the BBC
Hrvoje Prpić, who has been driving exclusively electric cars for 10 years, describes the development of the charger network in Croatia as “pretty good”.
He says that at the end of last year there were about 2.000 public chargers in that country, which means that more than three cars share one.
“If we take the fact that more than 60 percent of vehicles are charged at home and remove them from the calculation, we have one public charger for almost every car – that’s a really good situation, even more than we need,” he says.
Joining the European Union obliged Croatia to pass the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Act (AFIR).
“That legislation clearly defines how many and what kind of chargers we need to have in Croatia, so there will be a fairly good infrastructure on the highways, both for electric cars and for electric trucks and buses,” says Prpić.
According to data from February 2024, which is published by the German statistical agency Statista, the total number of public chargers for electric vehicles in Europe reached 700.000.
But, they are not evenly distributed, so in Germany, France and the Netherlands, whose areas make up about 10 percent of the surface of the continent, in 2022 there were even 52 percent of the total number of charging stations, it is stated in the text of the specialized website Stateon.
You can see the map of the distribution of chargers in all European countries here.
Marko Mihaljević, a 35-year-old resident of Frankfurt, therefore “has no problem” finding an available charger in this city and its surroundings.
“And if you go somewhere a little further, you have chargers at every gas station, so I don’t see any problem there either, except that the prices can be different,” he says.
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How do European countries encourage electric mobility?
Until last year, Marko Mihaljević could count on nine thousand euros in the form of a subsidy for the purchase of a car, which he used twice to purchase new Tesla models.
“Three thousand was received immediately upon purchase, and another six thousand when you register it – it went very quickly and efficiently, without the hassle of paperwork,” says Marko.
The subsidy program that was in force in Germany for almost a decade, it ended in December last year, which was one of the government’s austerity measures in the fight against the economic crisis.
In this country, no tax is charged on the purchase and ownership of electric vehicles, which Marko describes as “a good way to save” and he is happy that it will be in force until 2030.
“Since I have another gasoline-powered car, for which I pay an annual tax of around 300 euros, it is clear to me how much I save with an electric one.
“In the center of Frankfurt, I have free parking for up to half an hour with electric cars, in some cities for up to an hour, and in Munich with an electric vehicle you have the right to drive on the yellow lane,” he describes all the advantages of electric mobility in Germany.
Nebojša Margetić wishes for incentives like those in Germany, and above all in Norway, in Serbia.
“Norway is an example of good practice with only two measures – they exempted customers from value added tax (VAT) and allowed electric cars to drive on yellow lanes in cities,” he says.
Serbia offers fixed subsidies of 2.500 to 5.000 euros for passenger cars.
The total amount of money allocated by the government for this type of customer stimulation is 170 million dinars in 2024, which is more than double the 440 million allocated in 2023.
Margetić assesses that this is a “measured help” for drivers, but he also believes that the abolition or reduction of taxes would be a more effective measure.
“It is important that we know exactly what we can count on, because domestic sellers have to order them this year for next year, and the state makes a decision on subsidies in April and distributes them during the summer.
“As long as buyers don’t know what kind of help they will get and when, they don’t want to buy a car, and as a result, sellers are also cautious, because they don’t want these relatively expensive cars sitting in their showroom and not being able to sell them,” says this Belgrade resident. .
However, the subsidies are intended only for buyers of new vehicles, so Mića Makarić, a restaurateur from Železnik, could not count on them when he purchased two Volkswagen cars in 2020, four years old at the time.
Although he says he is happy with the “very good price” he paid and the fact that he bought them on lease, he could use some extra help.
Due to the purchasing power of the population in Serbia, as well as the fact that there are very few electric cars, subsidies for customers like Makarić would be valuable, points out Nebojša Margetić.
“I believe that at this moment we need both used and new ones, so the logical move of the state would be to subsidize used ones to some extent,” explains Margetić.
The maximum amount of subsidies of 5.000 euros for passenger vehicles is also applied in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, which especially stimulates electric mobility in public institutions, for which these subsidies go up to 7.000 euros.
Bosnia and Herzegovina also made a decision to abolish customs duties on the import of electric vehicles from abroad.
The value of the state aid that future drivers of electric vehicles in Slovenia can count on this year is a maximum of 6.500 euros, or a total of six million euros.
Since 2017, North Macedonia has also been allocating 5.000 euros for buyers of electric cars, but last year this aid was absent due to a shortfall in the state budget.
No subsidies were paid in Croatia last year either, but during this year they will amount to 9.000 euros for those who will be awarded in a public competition, and that Balkan country will allocate a total of 15 million for this purpose.
Hrvoje Prpić says that these measures were “hastily introduced” and that they are “not exactly a solution” for promoting electric mobility in Croatia.
“Only 1.500 customers can get these subsidies and it might be more efficient if there were none, because sales slowed down last year – everyone was waiting for subsidies, which in the end did not come,” believes the president of the Power Circuit Association.
He has a different opinion about the state’s move to deduct half of the VAT from companies that purchase these vehicles, calling it a “well-defined and clear measure”.
“There is no pre-registration and obtaining permits – when you buy a car, you automatically have the right to VAT deduction, and I think that is the only favorable measure,” he says.
How to achieve progress in the Balkans?
While driving hybrid and electric cars in Germany is “a very normal thing”, the attitude of people in the Balkans is quite different from the one that prevails in the countries of Western and Northern Europe, describes Marko Mihaljević.
“I remember once I parked on a charger at a supermarket in Croatia, and people came up and asked, they wanted to know what kind of car it was, they asked me if they could see it inside, they asked how it was charged and how much it cost , which is positive,” he says.
When asked what needs to happen in order for Croatia to increase the number of electric vehicles and improve conditions for drivers, Hrvoje Prpić answers with one word: “Time”.
“Old cars change slowly, as many as 60 percent of them are older than 10 years, so regardless of the fact that there are more and more electric vehicles among the newly purchased vehicles, the accumulation of old ones still makes it impossible to replace the entire vehicle fleet,” he assesses.
The way of thinking of people in Croatia is an additional brake on the breakthrough of this technology.
“They have a hard time getting used to it, they resist changes and don’t want to change their habits, which is necessary with an electric car,” Prpić points out.
“But 98 percent of those who have tried driving at least once change their opinion, and the biggest change occurs when a neighbor sees a neighbor driving to work almost for free, and then curiosity arises,” he says.
Nebojša Margetić claims that “misconceptions due to ignorance and lack of information” are the biggest enemy of the widespread use of this type of transport in Serbia.
“The misconceptions are that they are slow, that there is no place to charge the battery, that the battery will catch fire and that is dangerous, that batteries are extremely expensive, that there is no place to service them, that the cars themselves are very expensive,” he lists all the arguments. which he has heard in discussions so far.
And while enthusiasts in the Balkans are trying to popularize a more modern approach to transportation, Marko Mihaljević is ready for the next phase of electric mobility.
“At the moment, I am also installing solar panels on the roof of a house in Frankfurt, which will close the circle.
“I will drive a car on completely green energy and I will not pay for it, but I will produce it myself, which is an ideal solution”.
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( BBC Serbian Home page )
Source link : https://en.vijesti.me/amp/698905/electric-cars-where-is-the-balkan-compared-to-europe
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Publish date : 2024-03-20 07:00:00
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