Analysis of electric passenger car uptake in European rural regions reveals interesting details

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An analysis of electric passenger car uptake in European rural regions has revealed interesting details.

In the year 2019, new electric passenger car registrations by total numbers, shares, and on a per capita basis were highest in urban and intermediate regions in Europe.

On the other hand, rural regions offer great potential to electrify the motorized car fleet. The study focused on new electric passenger car registrations in rural regions and analysed policies in leading rural electric passenger car markets that may have driven the uptake.

Many rural regions with high electric passenger car shares have set a 100 per cent electric vehicle stock target.

This is an important step to spur electric vehicle policy measures. All regional or national governments of the nine top rural electric vehicle markets analysed offer purchase incentives, tax reliefs on registration and for owning a car, or a combination.

The governments of Germany, Norway, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland have national funding programs to support the extension of the public charging network.

Public charging points per 100,000 inhabitants in rural areas of these countries are more than national values by up to more than three times.
Most of the governments of the rural regions studied have additional infrastructure support programs.

These include free installation of public charging points or financial aid for the installation of home chargers.

Transition to EVs

Thanks to varying preconditions in less populated areas, there is no policy set that can easily be adopted across all rural regions to speed up the transition to electric vehicles.

But the study indicates that financial incentives to support electric vehicle purchase and use, and local incentives for the extension of the public and private charging infrastructure network can help to expand adoption.

Activities in local areas such as community-based electric carsharing initiatives, information, and awareness campaigns can also increase the electrification of the rural vehicle fleets beyond major cities.

(With inputs from Automotive Lead Research Team)

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Also read: Electric vehicle revolution to see on-board chargers to become standard on BEVs by 2027: Study