Banten Provincial Government Evaluates Maintenance Costs of Official Vehicles Before Purchasing EVs

Serang (ANTARA) - The Banten Provincial Government is currently evaluating and mapping the maintenance costs of around 2,000 units of conventional official vehicles in operation, before deciding to switch to procuring official vehicles based on electricity or electric vehicles (EVs). Banten Governor Andra Soni in Serang on Thursday stated that the delay in purchasing electric official cars for officials was taken in line with budget tightening policies and energy efficiency optimisation in the government environment. “For now, we have not procured anything related to electric cars. There are around two thousand official vehicles here, which certainly incur maintenance costs and so on. Well, this must be mapped out first,” said Andra. He explained that the current government budget is focused on activities that provide direct impact to the community, while the Regional Secretary (Sekda) and staff implement savings measures. “Furthermore, vehicles for public interests, like buses for example or garbage trucks that are decades old, well, those are what we will review (to be replaced with electric ones),” he said. Personally, the Governor admitted to using an electric car and feeling its economic efficiency. However, he noted the need to expand the ecosystem of public electric vehicle charging stations (SPKLU) to support faster battery charging duration. While completing the mapping of official vehicles, the Banten Provincial Government is also implementing a direct fuel saving policy through the carpooling movement for commuting to work.