Smart City
NOT CARS, BUT AN ENTIRELY NEW ELECTROMOBILITY PARADIGM
L
ast June, the Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Economic Development launched a joint initiative dedicated to the creation of a new industry based on large-scale deployment of electric vehicles (EVs). As ambitious as it may seem at first, global competences in the field of electromobility are still spread around the world with a few centres of gravity emerging from China to Japan to California to Detroit. There is clearly space for the Polish economy to become a strong contributor to the global trend towards electromobility if inherent strengths of local skills can be mustered - including a leading role in the market of modern electric buses. However beneficial conditions have to be established to achieve this. There is Norway, a global success story in the deployment of EVs, with sales of new electric cars reaching 30% of total sales in Oslo and Bergen. The country boasts the
74 polish market
fastest diffusion rate of electric vehicle technology in the world with 50,000 cars sold in 7 years, way more than at any other European market. On the other hand the whole development was possible thanks to full dedication of the country and a significant purchase incentive (thousands of EUR per car). While taking into consideration wealth and beneficial geographical distribution of the Norwegian population, it is worthwhile to examine lessons from the Scandinavian country. Despite high environmental awareness of Scandinavians, concerns regarding shortcomings of electric vehicles were hampering the development of the local market. A study was commissioned to explore citizen attitudes. One of the most profound conclusions, largely absent from the public debate in Poland yet, was that batteries and appropriate charging infrastructure was essential for the demand to take off.