Italy Wants To Pass Norway And Have 1 Million EVs On Its Roads By 2022

Italy might be behind the eight ball with the introduction of electric vehicles but the country’s government has bold plans to change that. In fact, the nation wants to put 1 million electric vehicles on its roads by 2022.

Buried within paperwork going back-and-forth between the League and Five Star Movement coalition parties that will ultimately govern Italy, a passage calls for “reductions in gasoline and diesel vehicles.” The document then suggests “incentives to support the acquisition of electric and hybrid vehicles.”

Five Star’s 31-year-old leader Luigi Di Maio has previously said he wants Italy to have 1 million EVs on its streets by 2022, a figure which would make it Europe’s leader in the adoption of electric vehicles.

Di Maio made the ambitious target known while campaigning last year for Five Star Movement prior to the national elections on March 4. Bloomberg reports that many auto analysts believe this figure is overly ambitious. Additionally, it remains unclear if Di Maio was referring exclusively to all-electric vehicles or also hybrids.

In 2017, Italians purchased a mere 2600 fully electric passenger vehicles and the European Automobile Manufacturers Association estimates that there are fewer than 5000 electric vehicles currently on Italy’s roads.

According to analysts, Italy would need to roll out unprecedented incentives for EVs, likely exceeding even those of Norway, to achieve its target.

“If you want 1 million electric cars on Italian roads in the next five years, the only option is huge tax benefits like Norway’s,” said Gian Primo Quagliano from the Promoter research institute.

“The government would be looking at incentives of about $10,000 a car, like France,” equating to roughly $10 billion worth . Even still, it “remains almost impossible to get there so quickly,” he added.