As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, the tender for the award of Croatian electric car purchase incentives from the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency was opened yesterday at 08:00, and by 08:30, literally thirty minutes later, 99 percent of the provisions of a total of 103.3 million kuna were filled. As of 08:50 that same morning, applications for Croatian electric car purchase incentives was no longer possible.
“The method of application for both people and companies was the same as it was last year. At the end of May, we published a public call/invitation for expressions of interest towards car distributors, and at the end of June, a public call for co-financing the purchase of electric cars for people and companies came to be. The amount of Croatian electric car purchase incentives per vehicle wasn’t set to change this year and amounted to between 20 and 70 thousand kuna, depending on the category of vehicle and type of drive,” they said from the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency.
This means that this year, too, the implementation of grants for the purchase of environmentally friendly vehicles was carried out according to the procedure introduced last year, which has proven to be more efficient than the previous practice(s).
To be more specific, last year, a new, changed procedural method was introduced, according to which the famous “first come first served” method was avoided, ie the model according to which incentives were given to those who managed to apply first. Apart from the fact that such a system was criticised by both individuals and legal entities, it was also unsuccessful because in the end, only 50 percent of people to whom the incentive was granted, actually bothered to use the incentive. Under this new system, individuals and legal entities no longer apply to the public call directly, but through authorised motor vehicle dealers based here in the Republic of Croatia.
As such, this year as well, the aforementioned Fund first announced a public call to which dealers were able to apply, who then reported points of sale and available vehicle models through the Fund’s application. At their points of sale, individuals and legal entities received an offer for a vehicle and dealers applied for the Croatian electric car purchase incentives on their behalf.
Therefore, those who wanted to get their hands on Croatian electric car purchase incentives this time around still had to be fast, meaning they needed to fully prepare before the announcement of the public call, which meant studying the offer of the vehicles for which they could apply for subsidies, and which were being offered on the Croatian market, and there were more and more every day. According to information from the Fund, the utilisation of the funds from last year’s public call has been much better than it was in previous years, but they don’t yet have an accurate analysis. The reason is that the deadline for the purchase of these vehicles, ie the use of the reserved funds, had been prolonged due to the extended deadlines placed on the delivery of cars on a global level. The procedure after a successful incentive booking is, therefore, exactly like it was last year.
The buyer has been required to pay a minimum advance of 7 percent of the Fund’s requested funds, for example if an incentive of 70,000 kuna was requested, the dealer would have to be paid out a sum of 4,900 kuna. The deadline for delivery and use of incentives will be nine months from the approval of co-financing. By far the most sought-after vehicles for co-financing last year were electric cars, for which 70,000 kuna was made available this year as well.
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