Vacant parking spaces left behind by defunct car-sharing company GoTo remain a free-for-all two years after Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said they would likely be allocated to private electric vehicles.

Of the six sites visited by Times of Malta last week, five still bore GoTo signs and equipment – in one case crudely covered with black bin liners – while one appeared to be a generic parking bay.

None of the bays, spread across St Julian’s, Gżira and Qormi, were equipped to charge private electric vehicles (EVs).

Evidence of the apparent inaction comes almost a year after former Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia said he aimed to have former GoTo parking spaces reallocated for private EVs “in the coming weeks”. This was a year after Dalli said her ministry was “in discussions” with the transport ministry and Transport Malta (TM) to agree on what to do with the spaces.

But after yet another year, nothing appears to have changed.

In a terse response to Times of Malta, a spokesperson for the transport ministry said, “talks are currently under way with TM and GoTo to determine the best way forward for all involved”. A spokesperson for the energy ministry said the matter was “still at Transport Malta”.

A GoTo parking bay. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

No new charging points this year

Meanwhile, figures presented by Dalli in parliament last Monday indicate the government has not installed any new charging points since last year.

Replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ryan Callus, Dalli said the government had undergone “technical preparations” to install 600 new charging pillars, equivalent to 1,200 charging points, so far this year.

She said that tenders for the installation of the pillars would be issued in the “coming weeks” and that once the project was completed by the end of next year, the country would have 1,572 charging points – 1,200 more than the 372 her ministry said last November the country already had.

Dalli stopped short of answering how many charging points would be provided by the end of this year, but said the government had committed to providing 6,500 charging points by 2030.

At the height of its operations, GoTo had some 450 reserved parking spaces across the country, with most located in St Julian’s, Sliema and Gżira.

The company ceased operations locally in September 2022, a decision it attributed to the impacts of the pandemic and a lack of user uptake, leaving vacant bays in its absence.

Dalli had wanted to use the bays for charging private EVs. But last year Farrugia hinted at a dispute between Transport Malta and GoTo, saying talks were ongoing “to find a way forward and avoid legal action”.

By the end of June, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles accounted for just under 15,000 out of around 440,000 vehicles on the road, according to the National Statistics Office.