“A developed country is not a place where the poor own cars, but where the rich use public (electric) transportation”

Quote from Gustavo Petro, Former Mayor of Bogotá

At the end of 2020 European electric buses penetration was far behind the market needs with a share equal to 0.9% of the 970,000 vehicles (source: PWC Report for Enel X) running across our cities, thus heavily contributing to pollution EU citizens are exposed to. Furthermore, comparing this figure with the Chinese electric fleet, made by almost 590 thousand e-buses, the picture becomes frustrating.

source: PWC Report for Enel X | Bus Market Research | Bus Technology circulating

Enel X ambition is to foster public transport electrification by 2030, promoting local industries, communities and growing also outside Europe. In fact, around 30 billion of euro of investment would be expected over the next 10 years which would lead to the electrification of around 140,000 EU urban buses (source: McKinsey for CEO alliance).

The political commitment should increase by:

• promoting urban public transportation fleet to be full-electric by 2040 and assigning EU funds based on electrification targets achieved; 
• defining specific tenders solutions such as - at least 50% of buses to buy must be electric or promoting tenders on TCO instead of of the purely upfront cost based ones; 
• enabling and boosting the “as a service” models, in addition to the traditional procurement of vehicles, to overcome upfront spending and create a leverage effect through private investments and maximize electrification benefits;
• supporting growth EU based industry through introduction of “local content” conditions;
• establishing a fast track for fleet electrification projects; 
• revising the already available EU funds to allow to private companies to present integrated electrification projects in which the bus is only one of the necessary components. 

To conclude, we have noticed in Chile the electric buses development has led to greater use of public transport proving the thesis that a developed country is not a place where the poor own cars, but where the rich use public (electric) transportation.

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