Going nowhere
October 5, 2017
The latest move to encourage the use of electric vehicles (EVs) in Arab markets came in Dubai. Last month, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority announced incentives for EVs that include exemption from road tolls and registration fees at the Road and Transport Authority, and free charging and parking at specially assigned locations.
The emirate expects to have some 32,000 EVs and hybrids on the road by 2020, and 42,000 by 2030. For Dubai, this actually seems a somewhat small proportion, given that data from the past few years showed that vehicle sales were around a million, and vehicle density is one of the highest in the world at 540 registered vehicles per 1,000 residents in an emirate with 2.8 million inhabitants. However, when compared with other countries in the region, such as Lebanon, Dubai’s EV initiatives appear strong.
October 5, 2017
Our roads are unsafe. A large number of the cars on our roads are inefficient, polluting, and even dangerous to drive. Many go uninspected, as people thumb their noses at the law, and many more are cheap cars that were damaged and repaired badly, bought secondhand on the gray market. On top of everything else, our commercial-vehicle fleet is in desperate need of renewal.
The crisis we face is dire. It was instigated by a shortsighted government tax policy that financially incentivizes people to keep driving their old cars, and effectively discourages them from buying newer, safer, more fuel-efficient models through the imposition of a high tax on even the most compact and affordable vehicles.