Russia Makes Forceful Push Toward Vehicle Electrification

2016 Nissan Leaf (Credit: Nissan)

Putin and company don’t mess around with democracy, which can be problematic when it comes to free speech, but can be a huge boon for electric vehicles. According to a new report from Green Car Reports, Russia is pushing electric car chargers through a new decree.

Under the new conditions, all gas stations must have an electric car charger installed by November of 2016. That’s huge, considering that electric vehicles are scant in the country and the current charging infrastructure is pretty pathetic.

The cost of installing the chargers and maintaining them will be born solely by the gas station owners. That fact alone likely means most station owners will opt for the cheapest kind of charger available, which will take hours for a vehicle to replenish its battery.

This new move probably isn’t going to pave the way for a huge Tesla expansion. The California automaker has zero operations in the country, and it’ll probably stay that way for a while. In the meantime, Mitsubishi is actively selling the notoriously awful i-MiEV, which apparently has been received well by people who are used to the horrendous experience of getting behind the wheel of a Lada.

Speaking of Lada, the domestic electric vehicle in Russia is the El Lada.

Since 2011, only 500 electric cars have been sold in Russia, give or take a few. Most of those reportedly are i-MiEVs, which is a truly sad fact. This whole gas station decree is supposed to turn things around, but what would likely help more would be opening up the market officially to the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S and BMW i3. Once Russians understand that not all electric vehicles look and drive horrendously, sales would increase.

It also wouldn’t hurt if Russia were to provide cash incentives to its citizens for buying an electric car. That would likely stimulate more sales than pushing around gas station owners.