In a nation that had gotten used to cheap energy and with an economy founded on heavy industries that consume large amounts of coal and gas, environmental issues have been far down the political agenda compared to Western nations.
Russia’s
war against Ukraine has, however, made energy supply diversification and energy
saving a national priority. And it is the reason why parliament on Nov. 25
exempted electric vehicles from a 10 percent import duty to give
emissions-free vehicles a head start in the car market.
In the past, however, such exemptions have been a source of corruption and fraud – with items certified as qualifying for such breaks merely to avoid the tax. If past practice is any guide, the exemption could be just a way for some car importers to simply get around the import tax.
But if it is enforced properly, the idea is to cut the amount of oil the nation has to import, especially from Russia.
And
charging electric cars would indeed decrease the need for imports of fossil
energy, says activist Oleksandr Kravtsov. He founded an electric
car import company together with fellow activists from the AutoMaidan movement,
a part of the EuroMaidan uprising.
The
charging of car batteries would predominantly take place at off-peak times,
when consumption of electricity is otherwise low. Increased nighttime
consumption would benefit power generation, as it would level out the
consumption over the day and thus allow for the more rational use of the
nation’s nuclear powers plants, which produce about half of Ukraine’s
electricity, Kravtsov told the Kyiv Post in parliament.
Kravtsov,
who has lobbied for the exemption in parliament for almost a year,
said that the country should take bold steps to move “from the third world
to first world without further ado.”
So it was
a disappointment for him that the parliament didn’t exempt electric
vehicles from value added tax, as the initial draft proposed.
A follow-up to
the exemption law is, however, expected to do just that, and include possible
future domestic producers of electric cars in the tax-break scheme.
The
savings provided by the duty exemption were limited to a maximum of around
$900, Kravtsov said, as most electric cars sold
in Ukraine are second-hand. He said that although the battery had to
be changed every 200,000 kilometers, general maintenance and fuel costs were
lower than for conventional cars. Fuel costs alone are a mere Hr 10 per 100
kilometers.
Other registration duties, depending on motor size for conventional vehicles, were already at low rate of €100 for electric cars.
There are
currently only around 500 electric cars running on the nation’s roads,
but Kravtsov says he expects that figure to
increase tenfold over the next year.
He said
that there were currently about 70 charging stations installed at OKKO gas
stations along the major highways, such as the Kyiv – Lviv – Chop route and the
Kyiv – Odesa road. The typical range of a small class electric car,
like a Nissan Leaf, is limited to 150 kilometers per charge.
Supercharging
stations, which can fully charge batteries in about 30 minutes, have yet to be
installed at Ukrainian charging stations, however. The conventional chargers in
Ukraine take about three hours to fully recharge a battery, making electric
cars more fit for suburban transportation than for distance trips.
Meanwhile,
the government has a declared goal to become fully independent of imports of
oil and gas from Russia within a period of 10 years.
Rent-seeking
elites in Ukraine and Russia hitherto have paid scant attention to energy
saving, as they made tidy profits by siphoning gas and oil from the state owned
energy companies in trickle down schemes.
Even the
two gas supply crises, in 2006 and in 2009, were not enough to hammer home the
message that energy savings and supply diversification was a matter of national
security.
But curbing corruption and securing the nation against energy shocks are
not the be-all and end-all of switching to electric cars, Kravtsov said.
He said that a shift to electric cars was
ultimately about caring for the urban environment, where millions live,
reducing emissions and noise.
Staff writer
Johannes Wamberg Andersen can be reached at [email protected]
