2 October, Brussels – New research, conducted by The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), has concluded that increased international co-operation, in combination with numerical targets, would be the most effective measures to promote the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs).
The ICCT report highlighted the success of promotional policies to date, with Norway, the Netherlands and California – all known for their comprehensive promotional activity – gaining uptake levels of more than 10 times the international average. However, these actions are yet to fully proliferate, with just 8 countries representing 90% of the world’s EV market.
Numerical targets were considered the most effective policy, as they provide encouragement and certainty to the EV industry, while also enabling governments to easily monitor sector development. Though the EU does promote the EV sector, the Alternative Fuels Directive falls short of imposing numerical targets.
The report also emphasised the multiple benefits of EVs, one such example being their capacity for electricity storage. EVs connected to the grid could therefore provide storage capacity to cope with intermittent renewable energy generation, and be used as an electricity supply, with a ‘vehicle-to-grid’ (V2G) system to balance and maintain power levels on the European grid.