Volkswagen Group and the municipality of Astypalea in Greece introduced a joint undertaking to impress all the island’s transportation again in 2020. Roughly three years later, the undertaking seems almost full in what the German carmaker considers a check mattress for zero-emissions mobility.
Astypalea is an island within the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and west of Turkey. It is one of many many Aegean islands, however what makes it stand out is VW Group’s involvement in its electrification.
Volkswagen, Volkswagen Industrial, Ducati and Seat MÓ contributed to creating the island’s public charging infrastructure and electrifying the fleet of police vehicles, ambulances, airport shuttles, and public transportation.
The variety of VW Group EVs on the favored vacationer island has risen to 84, from none earlier than. The ID. Buzz electrical microbus operates below the ASTYBUS nameplate and has already accomplished over 125,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) ferrying passengers round. Clients can even lease the ID.3 electrical hatchback, Seat MÓ electrical scooter and Ducati e-bikes utilizing the astyMOVE app.
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Most newly registered autos on the island are EVs, and 25 % of inhabitants use the ASTYBUS transportation service.
Future initiatives for VW Group and the native administration embrace renewable power. Present small-scale photo voltaic crops provide inexperienced electrical energy to the electrical fleet in some capability. However a bigger 3.5-megawatt photo voltaic park, on observe to open in 2024, is anticipated to fulfill all the small island’s e-mobility wants, and as much as 60 % of its normal power wants.
The park will considerably cut back carbon emissions because the island at present makes use of diesel mills to fulfill its power necessities. The diesel energy crops emit as much as 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide yearly.
Maik Stephan, head of enterprise improvement at VW Group, laid out his imaginative and prescient for electrification:
Over the subsequent twenty years, we’ll see most of the modifications that make up the Astypalea undertaking in different areas of Europe as properly. Notably spectacular is the individuals’s change in temper from preliminary skepticism to nice approval. This reveals that speedy transformation is feasible if corporations, politicians and society work collectively.
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