European Commissioner Bulc opens new electric car charging station in Skoplje

The European Union’s Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc opened a new charger for electric vehicles during the Summit of 100 Business Leaders in Skoplje, local media reported. The charger was set up outside the Park Hotel in the center of the Macedonian capital as part of the EDISON eCity project.

Bulc drove an electric car from the Marriot Hotel, where the regional business leaders were meeting, to the Park Hotel. The new charging station can charge car batteries in about three hours.

Just a few days earlier, Commissioner Bulc attended a gathering in the Slovenian town of Celje which marked the start of a new stage of the EDISON project.

Project author and chairman of the board at the Slovenian Hidria company Iztok Seljak told reporters at the opening of the charging station that the main goal of the project is to spread electric vehicle mobility across the region.

“Following e-Belgrade in April 2017 when a charging station was opened and e-Celje in September, we are symbolically opening the first 22 kW charger in Skoplje which can charge two electric vehicles at the same time. Europe Car and EDISON are also starting the sale of electric cars here at the same time,” he said adding that the residents of Skoplje will get the first electric vehicle to test early in 2018.

The EDISON project was launched in Slovenia in 2015 with the rental of BMWil3 electric cars for the needs of handicapped children. Since then, a total of 10 charging stations have been set up in Slovenia and there are plans to set up charging stations along 2,400 kilometers of roads linking, among others, the cities of Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Skoplje, Tirana, Priština, Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and Koper.

Seljak said a large number of towns and cities want to join in the EDISON project, adding that the Slovenian capital Ljubljana has decided to introduce electric buses in its city transport by the year 2020.

“We are also working on an innovation in the field of magnetic induction wireless charging which would practically eliminate the need for large amounts of batteries in electric vehicles which would be charged directly from the road and that would be global news from the region,” Seljak said.

The first charger for electric vehicles was set up in Skoplje in 2014 as part of the Southeast Europe University’s Technology Park.