KYIV. Feb 8 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Official car importers have started importing electric cars to Ukraine. At the current stage the start of electric car sales is not a commercial project, but promotion of the product. Buyers should be prepared for it and infrastructure should be arranged.
“We have started importing electric cars officially at the end of last year. Of course, there is no large demand on them, but there is hope that a crucial point will be seen in the near term when the price of the car and the price of electricity will meet in one point and boom of their sales starts,” Director AWT Bavaria (BMW cars) Oleksandr Tymofeyev said during the discussion of the development of the Ukrainian automobile market late on Monday.
He said that taking into account the current state of the market and the necessity of receiving profit this is not a commercial project now. However, promotion of electric cars to the market requires a lot of time and funds.
“Advantages of these cars should be explained to consumers. The owners of the cars would come to the servicing centers less often. For example, the electric cars do not have lubricants, but they have recuperation boosting the lifespan of brake pads by two or three times if it is used wisely. On the other hand, we need to write letters to fire-fighting service, as this is another fire-fighting system in case of a car accident – there is no petroleum, but there is electricity and voltage,” he said.
Board Chairman of Renault Ukraine Yana Minenko said that the company devoted itself to the issue in 2015 after seeing the interest of Ukrainians to these cars.
“Initially this is not a commercial project – how many these cars can be sold on the 50,000-60,000 car market? Today few official representatives show their interest in the issue. Mainly unofficial representatives who import the cars from the United States and the EU were present at a meeting of the working group at the Infrastructure Ministry at the end of 2016. However, the official network is broad today. If it is not involved in promotion, there is no sense to speak about the servicing of electric cars in Ukraine,” she said.
“Now electric cars are much more expensive than cars with ICE, and I support the initiative of the ministry to implement a comprehensive program to promote them in Ukraine,” Minenko said.
Commercial Director of Hyundai Motor Ukraine Hennadiy Chetverukhin also said that the company decided to be involved in the issue, taking into account growth of the Ukrainian market.
He supported the opinion first to create infrastructure. Large investment is required in the creation and equipping servicing stations.
He said that it is likely that when the electric car market development programs were realized, companies would face internal problems in Ukraine.
The Infrastructure Ministry said that as of November 2016 there were 1,630 electric cars in Ukraine. Their annual growth is 13.2%, and their share of total sales is 0.7%.
