Two new electric vehicle charging points opened in Nicosia

Two new electric vehicle charging points were opened in Nicosia on Friday.

The charging points are both located in the city centre, with one in the car park atop the Tripoli bastion on the city’s walls, and the other in the car park in the moat near the D’Avila bastion.

The charging points are free to use and are available from 8am until 8pm every day.

The Nicosia municipality said it is “committed to a more humane centre of the capital city”, and that it hopes to minimise the city’s carbon footprint by reducing pollution created by cars and facilitating access to environmentally friendly forms of transport.

The news comes a day after it was announced that Cyprus has the fourth-lowest adoption rate of electric vehicles in Europe,

Data published by Eurostat showed that just 0.14 per cent of vehicles in Cyprus were electric in 2022, translating to a total of 830 out of the country’s 601,131 registered vehicles.

However, it must be noted that these numbers have since risen according to government figures, with a total of 1,322 electric vehicles having been registered in Cyprus by the end of last year.

Despite the currently low headline figures, however, the government has remained optimistic regarding its plans to expand the use of electric vehicles in Cyprus.

In February, Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades insisted that the target the government set itself of there being 80,000 electric vehicles in Cyprus by 2030 is “achievable”.

He added that a total of 2,254 people had applied for government subsidies to buy electric cars in the first three days since applications were opened. This number is almost three times the number of electric vehicles currently on Cyprus’ roads.

The government had allocated a total budget of €36 million for the subsidy.

Vafeades said that there was “rapturous” interest in the used electric vehicle market, and that the government is now awaiting further details regarding those applications from the applicants.

Earlier, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis had said the government aims for all new cars bought in Cyprus to be electric by 2035.