More than 20,000 people in Sweden have applied for an E.U.-backed subsidy that lets lower-income drivers in rural areas lease electric cars, in the seven months since the program opened in March, Euronews reported on Wednesday.
The premium pays up to 120 euros a month toward leasing costs, with a one-time bonus of 1,600 euros for the lowest earners. To qualify, applicants must earn less than 80 percent of Sweden’s average wage, live in a rural area and choose a car priced between 6,000 and 40,000 euros. Nearly 90 percent of the purchases so far have been second-hand vehicles, according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
The money, 400 million euros, comes from the European Union’s Social Climate Fund, which is financed by carbon taxes collected under the bloc’s Emissions Trading System. Officials aim eventually to move 115,000 households away from fossil fuels.
For Daniel Caldeman, a social worker who drives 65,000 kilometers a year, the arithmetic settled it. His monthly fuel bill has fallen from about 800 euros for petrol to about 150 euros for charging. “I like being eco-friendly and I think about not polluting the environment,” he told Euronews, “so yeah, it was a factor, but I think that the main factor was economics for me.”
Olivia Almquist, a project manager, swapped an unreliable 30-year-old petrol car for an electric one and reversed her own views in the process. “I couldn’t understand why people bought electric cars, because it didn’t look like it was trustworthy,” she told Euronews. “And now I can’t understand why not everyone is buying an electric car.”