Energy

Electrification of surface transport

Published

13 years ago

March 29, 2013

By EU Reporter correspondent

Alstom, AVERE, CER, ETRA, EURELECTRIC, EUROBAT, Going Electric, Nissan, Polis, UITP, and UNIFE have joined forces by creating a Platform for the Electrification of Surface Transport.
The Platform for the Electrification of Surface Transport held its maiden event at the Hotel Renaissance in Brussels.
MEP Gesine Meissner (ALDE, Germany) gave the opening remarks, followed by introductory presentations by Hans ten Berge, Secretary General of EURELECTRIC and by Libor Lochman, Executive Director of CER. This was followed by a panel discussion with Daniela Rosca, Head of Unit C1 (Clean Transport and Sustainable Urban Mobility), DG MOVE; Olivier Paturet, General Manager, Zero Emissions Strategy, Nissan Europe; Alain Berger, Vice-President for European Affairs and Head of Brussels office, Alstom; Alain Flausch, General Secretary, International Association of Public Transport (UITP), and Joost van Gils, Vice-Director Economic Development and Mobility, Province of North Brabant, the Netherlands, representing Polis. The discussion was moderated by Professor Joeri van Mierlo, Vice-President of AVERE.

The Platform for the Electrification of Surface Transport sees electrification as a key way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport and to reduce the dependence of the European Union on imported oil. In their common statement presented at the launch, the eleven organisations call upon public authorities to support the further electrification of surface transport on the basis of a multi-modal approach. The joint statement is attached.

MEP Gesine Meissner stated: “The vision of the Platform is to aim for fully electrified door-to-door multimodal transport solutions. This is an exciting prospect for European citizens and businesses, with significant growth and employment prospects.”
At the launch of the platform, ETRA Secretary General Annick Roetynck made the following statement on 2wheels as part of electric transport.
In the 2wheel sector, electrification is a reality. Last year, sales of electric PTWs grew 60% in a motorcycle market that in general has been declining for 5 years in a row now. In 2012, European sales of electric PTWs were around 30,000. But the absolute hit in the 2wheel sector is the electric bicycle.
Sales started very timidly in the second half of the nineties. Then, electric bicycles were mainly popular with the elderly and people with physical problems. In the last couple of years, a much wider variety of user groups is discovering the electric bike. With that, the perception of the vehicle is changing. It is no longer considered a means of transport for people who are too old or too unfit to push their bike. This change in perception is due to a number of developments:

-   Congestion and the growing number of local authorities combating that congestion with measures aimed at reducing private care usage
-   Soaring petrol prices and generally increasing prices for car usage
-   The economic crisis which forces people to (re)consider their transport behaviour
-   Growing environmental interest and awareness
-   Growing awareness of the consequences of lack of physical activity
We are quite confident that the electric 2Wheel market has sufficient potential to continue to grow for many more years to come. However, we believe that this process could be strengthened if there was more awareness of and attention to the potential of electric 2Wheels in European policies. So far, the European institutions seem to systematically overlook 2Wheels. They are not part of the Green E-Motion programme, nor of the Directive on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport or the Clean Vehicle Portal or the European Electromobility Observatory. Very recently they have been overlooked once again in the Clean Fuel Package.
This is exactly why ETRA attaches great importance to be part of this Platform, because it allows us to put 2Wheels in a bigger perspective, i.e. a perspective of sustainability, intermodality and green economic growth.