Hyperdrive
Italy Wants to Put a Million Electric Cars on the Road. Price: $10 Billion
- Government targets 1 million electric cars on road by 2022...
- ...But would need ‘Norway-level’ incentives to even get close
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The populist government in Italy, Europe’s most sluggish market for electric cars, has a big-bang plan to put 1 million of the vehicles on the nation’s roads. Getting anywhere near that target could cost the state $10 billion in incentives.
As coalition partners the League and the Five Star Movement haggled last month over their contract to govern, Five Star managed to insert a passage on “reductions in gasoline and diesel vehicles.” The document goes on to call for “incentives to support the acquisition of electric and hybrid vehicles” -- a cash-for-clunkers program.