There are two electric vehicle charging stations in Erbil, where drivers can charge their vehicles for free.
Residents who own electric vehicles wait for around an hour whenever they want to charge them.
“My big concern is charging it because there are not enough charging stations here and it is difficult to charge, you can charge it home for at least 10 to 13 amps of electricity and no more,” Reband Ali, an owner of an electric vehicle, told Rudaw’s Farhad Dolamari on Saturday.
The shortage of charging stations has led to lower demand for electric vehicles compared to other fuel-powered vehicles.
Several companies in the Kurdistan Region import electric vehicles and these companies have applied to the Ministry of Interior to install more charging stations in the center of Erbil in order to increase demand and sell their electric cars in the market.
Ninb Shamoun Slewa, the Director of Training and Development at Sardar Group, told Rudaw, “Charging your electric vehicles is a bit problematic because we have generator electricity and not enough government electricity, while the vehicles need at least 11 amps to get charged and that is the first point that people think about it before buying the car.” He added, “When people want to go on road trips outside the city, they will run out of charge and have no place to charge it, and the car will also get stuck.”
Slewa continued, “People like these electric vehicles, but they are not buying them because of these two issues.”
Electric cars get all their energy from a battery, which has the capacity of six to 10 years.
