Regional Law for reducing e-mobility costs

By project e-MOPOLI

Published on 21 January 2020

Italy

About this good practice

Regional Law (n.10/2003 and modifications, annually updated from 2017) to reduce sustainable mobility costs: total and permanent exemption of the car tax (regional annual tax for cars owners) for electric vehicles owners. This law aims to reduce PM10 and NOx emissions produced by private vehicles for passengers’ transports, following Regional Air Quality Intervention Plan. In 2017, more than 50% of regional NOx were produced by diesel vehicles, so the Region decide to update and implement this law annually. From 2020 tax reduction follows these rules: (1) 3 years exemption of tax in case of purchase, in 2020, of a car for private use, new or used, with the following characteristics: category M1 - vehicles passengers transport (n.8 seats excluding driver); displacement not exceeding 2,000 cc; belong to EURO 5 or EURO 6 emission class; bifuel (petrol / LPG or petrol / methane), hybrid (petrol / electric) or petrol power supply; (2) 50% reduction of the tax for 5 years starting from the month of registration for vehicles belonging to international categories M1 and N1 bifuel petrol/electric including vehicles with external charge or LPG/electric, registered from 01/2019; (3) permanent exemption for vehicles with exclusive hydrogen fueling or gas (LPG or Methane) and electric. Beneficiaries: physical person resident in the Lombardy Region, owners or lessees, of newly registered or used cars, purchased in 2020, belong to categories of point 1. Excluded: owners of diesel cars.

Expert opinion

Meeting our climate targets and obligations will need a significant shift towards low-carbon mobility and uptake of new vehicles in both the public and private sectors. Providing tax reductions and exemptions helps to trigger that change by guaranteeing mid- to long-term savings for those who invest. This can help to overcome the initial resistance that people may have to pay the higher costs for e-vehicles compared to ICE vehicles, recognising the benefit that such vehicles make to reduce externalities and contribute to meeting regional targets and overcoming challenges (e.g. air pollution). The practice could be transferred to over regions but would need an initial regional analysis to determine appropriateness. In many cases, cost alone may not be the major barrier to uptake. The tax cut represents, though, an option for any region’s policy mix.

Simon Hunkin

Works at Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform

Resources needed

0€
0 FTE - not possible to quantify human resources required to set up and to run of the GP.

Evidence of success

In 2017 new e-cars registered in Lombardy Region was 422, + 40% of e-cars in comparison to 2016 and registrations of e-cars for the first 6 months of 2018 had exceeded the total e-vehicles registered in 2017. In 2018 new e-cars registered in Lombardy Region were 665.

Potential for learning or transfer

Easy transferability to other EU context, since any Regional or local responsible for car tax could reduce or provide exemptions to the owners of particular categories of sustainable vehicles (i.e. electric and gas fuels). As per Lombardy Region, the parameters to calculate the reduction or exemptions could be updated annually monitoring regional NOx and PM10 emissions trend and promoting the improvement of air quality. Here, the transferability evaluation through 3 parameters: Ease of Implementation: very Easy; Impact: very high; Benefit-cost ratio: very high. This prioritization was used for all Good Practices of E-MOPOLI, more info in Source Book available here: www.interregeurope.eu/e-mopoli/library.