AMMAN — Electric and hybrid vehicles account for 18.5 per cent of Jordan’s total vehicle fleet, Environment Minister Muawieh Radaideh said on Wednesday.

Speaking during deliberations of the Lower House’s Finance Committee on the 2024 general budget draft law, Radaideh referred to “increasing demand” to buy electric and hybrid vehicles in the Kingdom, Al Mamlaka TV reported.

The Jordan Free Zone Investor Commission (JFZIC) in December said that 34,902 electric vehicles (EVs) have been cleared during the January-November period of 2023, marking a “significant” increase of 140 per cent compared with the same period the year before.

In its 2023 report, JFZIC reported a rising trend in sustainable transport in the Kingdom when 15,576 EVs, 13,629 hybrid vehicles, 9,456 diesel vehicles and 15,634 gasoline vehicles were cleared in 2022.

The trend continues in 2023 with hybrid vehicles imported to the country outnumbering diesel cars, the report said, with 14,873 hybrid vehicles, 7,309 diesel vehicles and 10,640 gasoline vehicles cleared during the January-November period of 2023.

In remarks to The Jordan Times in December, Jihad Abu Nasser, representative of the automobile sector at the JFZIC, said that hybrid and electric vehicles represent 18 per cent of the transport system in the Kingdom, with EVs alone accounting for 80,000 out of the over two million registered vehicles.

There are around 60 operating EV charging stations in Jordan as of October 2023, Abu Nasser said.

The prices of the majority of EVs sold in Jordan range between JD10,000 to JD25,000, depending on model, size, and battery capacity, among other factors, according to Abu Nasser, who noted that Chinese vehicles currently dominate the automobile market in Jordan, accounting for roughly 80 per cent of EV imports.

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