Brussel – March 28, 2017
CONEBI attended the event ‘Energy on the move: going forward with electro-mobility’, which was organised by the Platform for Electro-Mobility and addressed how the EU could reduce CO2 emissions through the further development of electro-mobility. The speakers – Ismail Ertug (MEP Socialists & Democrats), Nicolas Erb (EU Director Alstom), Christian Lindner (Cabinet Member of Commissioner for the Energy Union Mr Šefčovič) emphasised the importance of a good Electric Vehicle charging infrastructure as well as of proper pricing policy and customer acceptance.
Afterwards, Greg Archer (Director Clean Vehicles Transport&Environment) moderated the panel discussion with Peter Handley (Secretariat-General of the European Commission), Klaus Bonhoff (Managing Director NOW), Jonas Helseth (Director Bellona Europa), Tina Zierzul (E-Mobility Program Manager at EON Technologies) and Umberto Guida (Director Research & Innovation UITP). The panellists addressed the topic by mostly focusing on the development of electric cars.
MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens) intervened stating that e-mobility should not only be about e-cars, but also about pedal assist e-bikes: support was confirmed by Director Jonas Helseth and MEP Michael Cramer (Greens), the latter saying ‘we now have electric bikes and electric cargo-bikes’ and regarding freight transport, ‘50% can be transferred to those type of vehicles’. His final message was: ‘not cars but e-bikes: we have to look into the future’.
Phil Summerton, Director at Cambridge Econometrics, said in a study published last year that ‘in a world where climate policies are being implemented to drive investment in low-carbon technologies – as governments agreed in Paris – we will simply need less oil for transport. Through policy support and technological disruption, we can expect the global economy to be using 11 million fewer barrels of oil per day by 2030. This will rise to 60 million in 2050, have profound impacts.’ Pedal Assist Ebikes fit perfectly in this picture and Electro-mobility is getting more and more attention at the EU Institutional level, but to move more people and goods using electricity, we need EU policies and concrete programmes that support the Cycling sector too.
