Free parking for electric vehicles has huge appeal

Dubai’s pursuit of Green Mobility is evidenced by its offer of pragmatic incentives to consumers

As incentives go, free parking slots for owners of EVs (electric vehicles) in Dubai has an unbeatable appeal not just because it will make owners of EVs happy, but because it will want to motivate many others to want to become EV owners. And that is the outcome that, deservedly, must take its place in Dubai’s systematic progress to help it become a city of world-class contemporaneity in form and function.

Green mobility is no longer a science fiction; it is today’s reality. The sooner individuals as societies move towards making their dependance on fossil derivatives a thing of the past, the faster will the turnaround of the planet’s health become a certainty.

In this regard, the government of Dubai has, as always, demonstrated practice before preaching as it galvanised the choice for motorists to consider EVs as a happy option of transport by installing 100 charging stations at various locations in the city. One hundred more stations are planned to be set up this year. The Dubai Supreme Council of Energy announced last year that buyers of electric vehicles will be able to charge their vehicles for free at the charging stations until 2019.

There is more: Besides free parking, with an initial outlay of 220 slots across the city, there is also free registration and annual renewal for electric vehicles as well as a free Salik tag and a licence plate sticker identifying the vehicle as an EV. Such a bouquet of offers only reiterates the seriousness with which Dubai is pursuing its Green Economy for 2021.

This is a virtuous haste that should be the defining pace of all progressive governments as Dubai has shown.