• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Why government must support the use of electric vehicles on Nigerian roads

electric vehicles

Technologies in transportation are changing rapidly, with electric vehicles set to sweep through the industry over the next five to ten years. The need for the Government and organizations in Nigeria to understand the challenges and opportunities for electric vehicles in order to take advantage of this new wave of technology is very essential for us to grow our economy and improve the living conditions of the Nigerian environment.

It is stated that Electric vehicles hit a 5 million milestone in December 2018 and the global ratio of Battery Electric Vehicles(BEVs) rose to 69% in 2018.As of September 2018,the United States had One million plug-in cars, with California as the largest in United States of America plug-in regional market with 537,208 plug-in cars sold until December 2018.There were more than one million light-duty passenger plug-ins registered in Europe through 2018,with Norway as the leading country with over 296,000units registered by the end of 2018 and Norway has the highest market penetration per capita in the world and also has the world’s largest plug-in segment market share of new car sales,49.1% in 2018 and as of 2018,10% of all passenger cars on Norwegian roads were plug-ins. As of January 2018 there were 375 plug-in cars which represented 0.2% of all registered vehicles in South Africa, the only African country on the list. There was no record of the number of plug-in cars on Nigerian roads.

This calls for the need to upgrade and electrify mobility in our nations road transportation sector together with its economy ,national security ,consumer and environmental benefits which are quite enormous.The importance of the role of government in helping to cordinate, accelerate and unlock the huge potentials that lies within this new innovative idea will definitely go a long way in adding value to our economy.

Nigeria as the supposed giant of Africa cannot afford to continue in the current trend of slow growth and economic uncertainty in its adoption of electric vehicles in transforming mobility on our roads and achieving a better environmental sustenance.It was stated that the Nigerian state oil firms spent $5.8billion on fuel importation in 2017 as it tries to combat fuel shortage, the wastage of this amount was a big threat to national security, balance of our trade and integrity of our nations fuel security by a total dependence on importation of fuel despite being one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil.

The need for our government to support the use of electric vehicles sales in Nigeria has the potential of improving our nations GDP as well as create thousands of additional job opportunities.Government intervention also has the the potential of putting households and businesses in a position to benefit through lower costs in road transportation and also achieve a cleaner environment. The adoption and use of a high number of electric vehicles on our roads will also cause high reduction of fuel and maintenance costs.

The reliance on fuel importation to move goods across the nation would also be highly reduced by the elimination of millions of barrels of imported fuel per year.Our nation is well positioned to capitalize on cheap and reliable energy through the transition of mobility in our roads to electric vehicles with the prospects of benefiting from this national advantage and also accelerate the transition of the energy market to new generation of distributed power production and storage.

The complex interface between the transport, energy and power sector in the realization of this innovative change means there has to be a well coordinated synergy and cooperation across all the levels of government which will give our nation the opportunity to align with the international adoption of this technology in the near future to attain a better quality of life.

Furthermore, because we are blessed with diverse natural resources and minerals which are part of the requirement for the production of batteries which are cobalt, lithium and other materials.Nigeria is properly positioned to compete globally across the value chain of the expanding electric vehicle industry. Another benefit of the government support to this project is increase in the use of electric vehicle on our roads which will lead to increase in the efficiency of the road transportation sector and its impact will be felt throughout the economy through the need for a national plan to embrace and support the transition to electric vehicles usage which is one of the needed tool to drive the initial sales,and this will provide assurance for private sector investments in the charging infrastructure to drive the needed change we desire.

Over the long-term, we need to make sure we are electric vehicle ready, proper planning for the integration of electric vehicle in our electricity and energy forecasts,infrastructure and road transportation planning systems.The changes in this sector are very essential as one of the key enabler of other future mobility technologies that are connected to transportation and automated vehicles. There is also need for us to ensure that policies, regulations and infrastructures are put in place not only to support the electric evolution but also to support the automated revolution which is one of the modern ways of driving change globally in road transportation and the need to ensure that our policies and regulations are fit for the purposes and will not slow or hinder the desired growth we expect in creating an innovative and exciting advancements in the mobility of our road transportation sector.

 

Festus Okotie