Aleksandar Vranić with an MA in Economics, employed in the Economic and Procurement Service in PE “Post of Serbia”, participated in the conference “The construction of electric vehicle charging stations in urban areas and road infrastructure” held in April 2017 at the Belgrade Building Trade Fair. On that occasion, he told the audience that he made a proposal for the project idea entitled “Advantages of introducing electric cars following in the footsteps of the European Post”.
It always makes us happy when we learn that there are young people who want to implement energy efficiency measures in their companies and especially in such a large infrastructure system as “Post of Serbia”. Considering that this bulletin is all about ecomobility, we asked Aleksandar to tell us more about the idea.
– The goal of my project is to improve the quality of life and increase the energy and economic efficiency, both in the institution where I work and in the entire society. This idea of “green mail” has already been realized abroad, where it is not uncommon that your shipments are delivered by electrically powered vehicles. Projects tested in EU cities have shown the justification of economic investment and great benefit for the environment and the results are great – said Vranić.
Out of all European countries that have electric cars today, Norway is the first in which “green” cars are most represented.
– The intention of this country is that these cars “come to life”, and finally to completely replace “classical” cars in public services and economy. NorwayPost bought 300 electric cars, Renault Kangoo Z.E. which has a five-year warranty or 100,000. After the warranty expires, the battery of the vehicle runs at 66 percent of capacity. This is a great result and it is expected that the vehicles of the future will have even better performances – he added.
Aleksandar submitted his proposal to the development sector of PE “Post of Serbia” and the realization of his idea has been in the procedure since May 2017. The Norwegian Embassy has published its entire study on the idea of introducing electric cars.
The largest fleet of electric power vehicles is owned by French Post, which announced a tender for the procurement of 10,000 electric cars for delivery in 2017.
– The French team plans to significantly reduce annual fuel costs. In addition, the quality of traffic will be raised to a higher level because the French Post and the Renault team together promote hydrogen–powered trucks. They already largely collect and distribute mail packages with such trucks – says Aleksandar.
He explained to us that our country could look up to France.
– The project funded by the European Commission in 2015, 200 fast chargers were installed on the main French roads, so, every 80 kilometers there is one station. If “Post of Serbia” does not wish to allocate funds for chargers, this can be overcome by applying for external sources of funding from the EU funds. –believes Aleksandar.
Another country that can serve as a good example is Germany, which is planning to replace all small delivery vehicles with electric vehicles.
– German Post will provide its employees with 2,000 electric delivery vans. Germany’s goal is to replace all cars (30,000) with electric cars that will be produced in Germany, for the time being, production capacities will be exclusively for the post, while later it is planned to expand capacities and offer “green” delivery vehicles to other public services and companies – Aleksandar reveals.
Austrian Post also has a fleet of 1,300 electric cars. Austria, according to the latest data, has about 10,000 registered electric cars. Those cars will be more visible and recognizable on the streets, as they will have green license plates.
The advantage of electric cars is that they can be charged at home, at a workplace, and in shopping malls.
Taking into account the examples of good practice from the European Union, Aleksandar explained how he sees the “green post” of Serbia. According to his study, the appropriate electric car for our country would be Renault Kangoo, a delivery van with a range of 270 km.
– I have calculated that the electricity costs would be ve times smaller than today’s expenses when a lot of money is spent on fuel for sending and delivering packages. And this applies only to energy. The savings on everything that is needed for a classic car, and it is unnecessary for electric cars, such as engine oil costs, fuel, and oil filters, various belts, mechanical equipment and more, can be added to this. Not to mention the benefits for the environment – said this enterprising young man.
In this chart, we can see that in Norway only in the first quarter of 2015, 23 percent of all new vehicles bought were electric ones
Aleksandar’s project covers the whole Serbia, that is, his idea is that electric cars and fast chargers should be provided for all 28 postal centers in our country.
– Post of Serbia would have its own system and as the owner of the infrastructure, it would provide the service of charging electric cars to third parties. My vision coincides with the practice in the world that confirms that the ideal distance for a charger is about 50 km, but as technology advances, so will electric cars and chargers, it will be possible to travel up to 100 km distance. By inspecting the map of working units of “Post of Serbia”, it is clear that our company could respond to this request – he reveals.
Thanks to this project, Serbian Chamber of Commerce invited Vranić to join the team for dealing with ecological mobility in Serbia because they believe that he can make a great contribution to the improvement in this area with his innovations.
– PE “Post of Serbia” is a full member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and in the forthcoming period it can be expected that with intensive activities, monitoring, application, and harmonization of valid world regulations and recommendations in the eld of postal traffic, it will give its full contribution to the operation of Universal Postal Union. I hope that my project will find its place in all of this – concluded Vranić.
Prepared by: Vera Rakić
This content was originally published in the eighth issue of the Energy Portal Bulletin, named ECOMOBILITY.
