St ten million euros is the budget for sponsorships aimed at the purchase of electric cars and the retirement of old vehicles, motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles, the Minister of Transport, Communications and Works Yiannis Karousos said today.
In statements in Larnaca, Mr. Karousos referred to the “Recovery and Resilience Fund – The Cyprus of Tomorrow” and said that an important part of this package coming from the European Union has to do with electrification and the Ministry of Transport approved certain proposals .
Today, he said, the second phase of the Subsidy Program for purely electric vehicles and retirement was announced, with the sponsorship amounting to ten million 158 thousand euros for 2,518 sponsorships, of all types of vehicles, cars, motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles”.
He added that “there is also the withdrawal program that will be combined with a lump sum cash amount of 500 euros, plus free tickets for the bus or with the purchase of a bicycle, that is, it will be combined with one of the two. There are 17 categories for pure electric vehicles with the sponsorship starting at 10 thousand euros, while the sponsorship for the withdrawal program is 7.5 thousands of euros”.
In most categories, he continued, “for both electric cars and the recall program, vehicle recall will be mandatory, however there are some differences compared to the previous program.”
Specifically, he explained, “what changes in the program for purely electric vehicles is that there will be no priority order and people do not need to rush to submit applications, since in the event that those interested exceed the number of available sponsorships then a lottery will be held”.
“In order to submit an application, those interested in buying an electric vehicle should provide a certificate from a vehicle seller that they have been informed of the price of the car,” he added.
This, said Mr. Karousos, “is done anyway so that we do not have many applications which are either not used or do not proceed, in order to save the bureaucratic time and also the costs that existed based on the previous applications”.
“Even before the whole process is completed, the interested parties should give a vehicle for withdrawal, over twelve years old and based on the specifications available on the Ministry's website”, he added.
Regarding the vehicle withdrawal program , which reaches up to 7.5 thousand euros for a car, the Minister said that “the order of priority will be with the oldest vehicle to be retired. That is, the older the vehicle that is withdrawn, the greater the chances of someone being approved”.
However, he clarified, “there are some categories for which no withdrawal is required, while there will also be a net cash withdrawal of 500 euros, plus some other service such as buses”.
The Minister of Transport expressed the certainty that “citizens will also embrace this program, which is clearly improved, covers private vehicles, commercial vehicles, taxis, disabled, large families with increased sponsorship, bicycles, mopeds, tricycles and others”.
He also noted that “for 2022 we had exceeded the goals we set for electric mobility, while we are sure that for 2023 the citizens will respond positively and we will again exceed our goals”.
As the Minister of Transport said “at the moment a relevant program is running to sponsor the installation of recharging stations in publicly accessible places, with the aim of installing a thousand charging stations”.
“All available information is available on the website of the Ministry of Transport, the Electromechanical Service and the Department of Road Transport”, he concluded.
