site.btaElectric Vehicles: Charge a 100 Km Run for BGN 2.50?

Ordinary people can charge their electric vehicles at the garage for up to 2.50 leva for a run of at least 100 km, the Chairman of the Board of the Electric Vehicles Industrial Cluster (EVIC), Ilia Levkov, said in an interview for BTA. Currently there are some 600 charging stations across the country, he added.

Taking a question about recharging on the way from Sofia to the coastal city of Burgas, for example, Levkov said recharging is inevitable but several quick-charging stations are available on this route and charging time is between 30 minutes to 1 hour. The service there is free of charge, Levkov said.

Asked what could be done to make electric vehicles cheaper, the EVIC Board Chairman recommended the option of such vehicles becoming a service, instead of property, and be used as a substitute for taxis, for example, not to mention that it would be much cheaper.

Lekov does not advise people to buy but rather to rent electric vehicles, easily accessible via a mobile phone application.

In Levkov’s opinion, the development of the electric vehicle sector should not rely on state institutions alone. He cited the shared vehicle service of Spark as a working example of the future. The Eldrive charging stations (223 in Sofia alone) are free of charge for all Spark customers. They are also available in the southern city of Plovdiv. 

One way or another, several suppliers of charging infrastructure are already available. As the trend is for more and more companies to go “green”, this will allow the electric vehicle sector in Bulgaria to develop further.