Green transport initiatives should target completely electric vehicles rather than hybrids, Environment Minister Miriam Dalli suggested on Tuesday.
"Our focus should be on battery electric vehicles - those that don’t pollute. Here the difference is between what is known as a low-emission vehicle and zero-emission vehicles,” she said.
Dalli was asked for the government’s policy direction after a funding initiative for hybrid cars - those with both a battery and a combustion engine - ran out.
Transport Malta last week announced it will be stopping financial incentives for the purchase of new or used plug-in hybrid vehicles, giving motorists until the end of May to order their car to benefit from the aid.
The agency said the €3.5 million budget for the scheme, announced during last October’s budget, was fully taken up.
The funds for the plug-in hybrid grant were taken up in just a few weeks due to high demand. A €1 million top-up soon ran out too.
The authorities are still paying out the €11,000 grant for those who order their vehicle before the end of May even if the vehicle will be delivered later in the year or in 2023.
Malta already offers an identical €11,000 grant for fully electric vehicles. This grant increases to €12,000 if an older vehicle is scrapped as part of the new purchase.
It is unclear what extra focus on these types of vehicles Dalli envisages.
However, she said hybrid vehicles still rely, at least partially, on traditional combustion engines.
This, Dalli said, was not in line with the EU-wide direction of phasing out the combustion engine.
The minister was fielding questions from reporters at the launch of a new climate change awareness campaign.
The campaign, Climate On 2022, will run until October and Dalli said it is focused on getting the public to tweak their lifestyles to reduce pollution.
Nationalist Party transport spokesman Adrian Delia said on Monday that the exhausted subsidies for hybrid vehicles should be renewed and extended, arguing that reducing emissions required incentives.