[blackwasp]

Austria has allowed electric vehicles (EVs) to travel at higher speeds on certain sections of the road compared to cars running on fossil fuels. With this move, the authorities are attempting to get people to adopt EVs in order to meet the European Union’s 2030 climate targets.

According to a media report, EVs in Austria will be permitted to travel at 130 km/h, while conventional cars will be restricted to 100 km/h in a particular speed zone. The areas with higher speed limits include 440 km of roadways. The new policy also includes provisions for free parking for EVs in different municipalities.

Austria’s Federal Ministry on Transport reports that EVs make up 2.5 percent of new vehicle registrations. This number is higher than Germany. Austria is looking to reduce 7.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 from the transport sector. This move is expected to help in achieving its target.



Source: Green Car Reports

Link to the Team-BHP News

[GTO]

Amazing initiative !

Good way to improve the image of EVs and enhance their appeal. Tesla gets all the credit of making electric cars cool, and such out-of-the-box government thinking will make them faster. Club that with their environment-friendly image & its clear where generation-next is going to be shopping.

[ajmat]

The only question is how would a cop distinguish between an E-Golf and a normal Golf speeding. One solution would be for ANPR (automated number plate reader) systems to enforce the speed limits and extract car details if it does not correlate with an electric VW Golf.

[Skyline_GT]

This feels like a knee jerk reaction to me, the kind of which we're used to here in India. Allowing EVs to speed more than gasoline cars just to make them more popular with public?

Would EV drivers even be exempted from getting booked for unsafe driving, inappropriate lane changes or even hitting someone on the road just because they are driving an EV?
Feels more like a mass brainwashing movement, to "force" people into buying those electric tin cans rather than letting people "choose" if they want an electric or a gasoline powered car.

[landcruiser123]

I just hope differential speeds in highways do not cause accidents- I'm guessing they'll make some lanes EV only.

Good initiative to encourage people to buy EVs but this is only limited to 440km?

[RaghuVis]

Originally Posted by Skyline_GT

Allowing EVs to speed more than gasoline cars just to make them more popular with public?

You make it sound like it is a bad thing to promote EV.

Originally Posted by Skyline_GT

Would EV drivers even be exempted from getting booked for unsafe driving, inappropriate lane changes or even hitting someone on the road just because they are driving an EV?

I think your response is a knee jerk reaction. Where have they mentioned that EV drivers can break every common sense rule?

Originally Posted by Skyline_GT

Feels more like a mass brainwashing movement, to "force" people into buying those electric tin cans rather than letting people "choose" if they want an electric or a gasoline powered car.

Why such a negative reaction? They have not "banned" normal vehicles right? Are they taking away the "choice" to people? People can still choose to buy normal vehicles right? Government is not forcing. They are just giving extra benefits to EV which is a great initiative. I do hope gradually they start reducing speed limit on normal vehicles by 2030 so that people convert it to EV's sooner.

Please don't compare Austria with India. Austria is not even the size of a state like say Tamilnadu or Karnataka.

[StarrySky]

While higher speed limits for EVs sounds nice, I think this is not really a big incentive. Since the range of truly affordable EVs is still limited, the best incentive for EV sales is upgrade in charging infrastructure. Charging need not necessarily be free or heavily subsidized, mere existence at enough convenient locations within the city and on major roads will do for a start.

Near Helsinki, there are some roads where there is a dedicated lane for cars having low CO2 emissions (not just EVs). If I remember correctly, there are also discounts in parking charges for such cars. But, I don't see many EVs around Helsinki. I rarely even see any EVs on that lane. Reason? Lack of charging infrastructure.

I had thought about getting a PHEV when I was getting a new car. However, I have no charging infrastructure in my apartment (neither mine nor any of my friends' residential communities have even started talking about it). There are about 10-15 charging ports in my office (too few), and a couple in the local mall. With the low pure electric range of PHEVs and given my daily usage, I needed a way to charge the car everyday to get full use of the hybrid powertrain and justify the higher cost. I was quite sure I wouldn't be able to manage it and gave up on the idea.

[autorahul]

Originally Posted by StarrySky

Since the range of truly affordable EVs is still limited

I think the likes of Hyundai Kona with their 400+ km ranges are changing this rapidly. Maximum distance between two large cities in Austria would be around 500km for Innsbruck. Obviously if you are going to go for the speed limit numbers, then your range would definitely be lower.

Its safe to assume that the country would already be having a significant number of charging points with 2.5% sales being EV and constantly improving both sales and infrastructure.

The way Norway has gone about EVs is really interesting and could be a model for other countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by autorahul

I think the likes of Hyundai Kona with their 400+ km ranges are changing this rapidly. Maximum distance between two large cities in Austria would be around 500km for Innsbruck. Obviously if you are going to go for the speed limit numbers, then your range would definitely be lower.

I think the 400+ range is achievable when you start with a full battery and run it down to near zero. That would be a bit of a gamble and you might want to stop earlier. Secondly, most EV reviews I see mention that the cars charge really fast until they hit 70-80% charge and then the charging slows down and getting to 100% takes a disproportionately large time. So they recommend charging only till you reach about 80% charge when you are on a road trip. So, the effective range is between about 5-80% charge, which reduces the range to about 235km (with the Kona, at highway speeds).

Originally Posted by autorahul

Its safe to assume that the country would already be having a significant number of charging points with 2.5% sales being EV and constantly improving both sales and infrastructure.

Looking at some statistics, Austria does have a pretty good number of publicly accessible charging points. The 2.5% includes PHEVs as well, but BEVs are the the majority in the 2.5%. However, compared to 2017, the sales seem to be stalling although charging infrastructure has improved. So I guess I can understand why the government thinks the electric car sales is low given the infrastructure. Finland, for eg:, has 4.5% share (BEV+PHEV). Unsurprisingly, PHEVs makes up a large part of the 4.5%, given the poor charging infrastructure compared to Austria. Given this report from the UK, it would be interesting to see if PHEVs are really used as intended or bought just to get subsidies.