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| Gogoro has the best plan for future of mass transport, and may now be in the right place at the right time to benefit from the latest plans by Norway, Netherlands and India. |
NORWAY, the Netherlands and India have all announced steps to stop
sales of cars powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) within their
borders.
The leader of the pack, Norway, has already made all municipal
vehicles electric last year.
Norway next aims to make all public transit fossil-fuel-free by
2020; followed by private taxis in 2022 and close to all cars by 2025.
Norway’s Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Støre said that Norway did
not intend to ban petrol or
diesel engines, but would instead give tax breaks to vehicles with low or no greenhouse gases.
diesel engines, but would instead give tax breaks to vehicles with low or no greenhouse gases.
If these tax breaks were to be applied in South Africa, it would
mean electric car owners would pay no tolls, no licence fees, no sales tax
(which makes up over a third of the price); no 14% VAT; and the corporate-car
tax benefits would be better.
In Norway, public parking and charging will also be free and best
of all, electric cars may travel in restricted bus lanes.
“We have seen how such taxation methods have improved the sale of
electric cars,” Støre told the media.
The Netherlands
Following Norway’s announcement to limit ICE
engines already by 2025, the lower house of the Dutch parliament last week
supported a motion to do the same.
The action was brought by the Jan Vos of the Dutch labour party
PvdA (for Partij van de Arbeid) and is opposed by the People’s Party (VVD) — the
largest in the country and head of the current governing coalition. The VVD said
it finds the Dutch plan “unrealistic”. But as Renewables International reports: “the Dutch Energy Act
expires in 2023, so a ban on diesel and gasoline vehicles afterwards would not
require the act to be revised”.
In India
From New Delhi, the Economic Times reported the India minister of electricity,
Piyush Goyal, said the Indian government is working on a scheme to provide
electric cars on zero down payment for which people can pay out of their savings
on expensive fossil fuels, to have India a “100% electric vehicle nation by
2030”.
“India can become the first country of its size which will run 100%
of electric vehicles. We are trying to make this programme self financing,”
Goyal said.
“We don’t need one rupee support from the government. We don’t need
one rupee investment from the people of India.”
He added the ministries of Environment, Roads and Oil have created
a small working group that already met this week to work on realising this dream
in India.
“Innovation is possible, it just needs an open mind. You need to
think of scale and be honest.
“We are thinking of leading the world rather than following the
world.
“India will be first largest country in the world to think of that
scale,” Goyal told the Economic
Times.
