“20% of Tunisians are ready to buy an electric vehicle in the short term,” according to the ‘Observatoire de l’automobile’ survey carried out by the Emrhod Consulting Institute.
The results of this survey were presented on Friday evening in Tunis at the 1st edition of the ‘Victoires de l’Automobile’ event. The results show that almost 29% of Tunisians say they intend to buy a car (new or used) in 2025.
The survey, which was conducted among a representative sample of the Tunisian population to gauge their perceptions of the sector and their expectations, also revealed that 47% of Tunisians surveyed would opt for a combustion engine, 17% for a rechargeable hybrid and 14% for an electric vehicle.
According to the survey, purchase price remains the main criterion for choosing a vehicle (49%), followed by fuel consumption (47%), aesthetics and design (33%), availability of spare parts (32%) and maintenance costs (31%).
In terms of preferred body styles, the saloon remains the most popular (45%), followed by the sports utility vehicle (31%) and the compact city car (15%).
According to the survey, 80% of respondents take maintenance costs into account when buying a car.
Finally, the country of origin of the vehicle is important to 75% of respondents (40% consider it very important and 35% fairly important).
New measures to promote electric mobility by 2030
Regulatory, pricing, technical, institutional and economic measures have been put in place to promote electric cars in Tunisia, Wael Chouchane, Secretary of State to the Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy in charge of Energy Transition, said recently.
He noted that it had been decided at the regulatory level to consider the recharging of electric vehicle batteries as a ‘service’, with electricity as one of the various inputs.
To this end, a draft decree has been prepared to enable all aspects of the charging service to be organized through a set of specifications, he added.
With regard to the standardization framework, Chouchane said that the standard relating to the nomenclature of Tunisian activities had been updated to include the electric vehicle battery recharging service, with a decree updating standard NT120 currently being adopted.
He also noted that the Ministry of Industry is working on a national strategy for electric mobility, which will help improve the energy performance of the transport sector and reduce its carbon footprint.
This strategy will make it possible to set clear targets for the number of electric cars and the number of charging points, in parallel with the national energy transition strategy, the national environmental transition strategy and the low-carbon development strategy, he added,.
The transport sector is the largest consumer of energy in Tunisia, accounting for around a third of final energy consumption and more than 50% of oil product consumption.
