Later today, Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist will present what the Center Party wants to do in the climate area, if they are allowed to participate in deciding after the election. It is very much about the electrification of transport, where the party wants to increase the pace significantly compared to the Tidö parties.
Now you put numbers on the goals for how fast it should go, and present the plan for how to get there. This includes, among other things, an electric car bonus of SEK 50,000 for private individuals. More households will be able to take part in it, up to 100,000.
- It will be twice as large as today. Until April, the government had received 4,000 applications for the electric car bonus, it is very narrowly designed, says Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist.
The Tidö government's bonus is aimed at households with weak finances in rural areas, so the Center Party wants to expand it. To this end, they want to set aside 5 billion cones, as well as a billion, to begin with, in subsidies to companies that switch to electric trucks.
- There, we want the subsidy to go directly to the truck manufacturer, so that the hauliers don't have to be without money for a long time. Even if they drive for large companies, the haulage companies are usually small, she says.
By getting company car users to go ahead, Thand Ringqvist also thinks that there will be many more used electric cars on the market in the future.
The goal is that 90 percent of new car sales in 2030 should consist of electric cars, and that 75 and 50 percent of light and heavy trucks, respectively, should be fully electric. By setting these levels, it is hoped at the same time to create a stable and large home market for the truck manufacturers Scania and Volvo, so that they will continue to invest in electric vehicles.
- They have trucks that can cover 50-70 miles now. For the heaviest transports, such as timber trucks, it is instead a question of them switching to biodiesel, says Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist.
Last year, 10 percent of the new heavy trucks consisted of electric vehicles.
Even if the Center Party's percentages were to be reached, this will not be enough to meet the government's climate goal of reducing emissions from transport by 70 percent by the year 2030. Parallel to electrification, therefore, investment must be made in the production and mixing of environmental fuels, says Thand Ringqvist.
- We have said that the state should procure a biodiesel reserve, instead of it consisting of regular diesel. There are companies that are in the starting pits, and this would create a demand. A demand from the EU is that we should be allowed to lower the taxation for climate-smart fuel so that we can reach higher levels without it increasing the price for consumers.
The center party thinks that the state should buy two billion worth of biodiesel for the state reserve stock.
The party also wants to provide subsidies for the expansion of charging infrastructure, for individual households and multi-apartment buildings, and the municipalities should be encouraged to take the lead in the transition by purchasing electric vehicles. They must also be given the opportunity to introduce environmental zones.
- Above all, it will lead to more electric light trucks, it is also good because it will be quieter where people live.
For these lighter transports in urban environments, they have come a long way, around 24 percent of new sales last year consisted of all-electric light trucks.
