Electric vehicles registration has gone  up from 0.69% in 2020 to 2.91% in 2023, Government Spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Tuesday, announcing that a Plan for the Promotion of Electric Mobility in Cyprus will be presented on Thursday by the Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Alexis Vafeades.

Government Spokesperson, Κonstantinos Letymbiotis, said during a press briefing at the Presidential Palace on Tuesday, that the purpose of the plan is to promote the purchase of vehicles with zero or low emissions and the use of alternative modes of transportation, thus achieving a reduction in the environmental impact of transport, and specifically the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) and gaseous pollutants.

According to the General Policy Framework for the Promotion of the Use of Electric Vehicles, a target is set for 25% of new vehicle registrations in 2030 to be pure electric vehicles and by 2035 this percentage will increase to 100%.

The Government Spokesperson added that according to the data of the Cyprus Statistical Service, it appears that in the last year there has been an increase in the number of vehicle registrations, which are charged from the electricity network.

Specifically, he said that electric saloon car registrations in 2023 were 995 compared to 512 in 2022, showing an increase of 94.34%, while the increase compared to 2020 is 1,175% after 78 electric saloon cars were registered in 2020. In 2023, 273 electric motorcycles were registered compared to 192 in 2022, while 40 electric buses were registered, a category for which there was no registration in the years 2022 and 2021 and 1 registration for 2020.

Electric vehicles' percentage of yearly registrations was 0.69% in 2020, 0.89% in 2021, 2.19% in 2022 and 2.91% in 2023.

The increase in the use of electric vehicles can be seen from the data, said Letymbiotis, adding that considering that the plan began to be implemented in January 2022, its contribution to the skyrocketing of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids is evident. However, he added, we are still far from the target set for 2030.