Israel zeroing in on electric transport
The Israeli Minister for Energy, Yuval Steinitz, has outlines his plan to phase-out all fossil-fuel powered vehicles by 2030. He had hinted as much previously but now included commercial vehicles in his masterplan.
The Minister told Reuters, that the government of Israel will aim to create a “critical mass” of electric cars to start with and move to full independence from fossil fuels from there. He scheduled the tipping point to come around 2025, when there will be about 177,000 electric cars on the road in Israel if all goes to plan of the ministry. Today there are just a few dozen.
Steinitz had presented his strategy for oil independence earlier this year, then saying that Israel would “intend to reach a situation in which Israel’s industry will be [sic!] natural gas, and most important, transportation in Israel will be based on natural gas or electricity”.
Today he added that “from 2030 we won’t allow anymore the import of diesel or gasoline cars to Israel”.
And he further clarified said transportation policy to not only include electric cars but buses and trucks powered by electricity and natural gas as well. Israel discovered huge deposits of natural gas some time ago and has started converting its power stations accordingly in recent years.
The government is also set to call for bids to four tenders this month for a total of 2,560 charging stations to be set up across Israel. The contracts are worth a total of 25 million shekels (about 6 million euros) reportedly. In addition, electric buses have taken up service in Haifa recently and BYD says they are part of a wider push for electric public transport (we reported).
The government of Israel is expected to approve the latest plan to phase out fossil fuels in favour of zero emission cars by the end of the year.
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