To reduce air pollution levels, the French government made an offer of 4,000 euros for its citizens who want to exchange fuel-powered cars for electric bicycles.
The money is intended to incentivize those who switch to polluting modes of transportation in favor of electric bicycles, a cleaner and more environmentally friendly alternative transportation.
This number is for people living in low-income households in low-emission urban zones. Meanwhile, French citizens with high incomes get smaller subsidies, quoted from The Verge, Tuesday (23/8/2022).
Conventional non-motorized bicycles are also eligible for incentives. The subsidies, which were first introduced last year, were recently increased after officials decided that more needed to be done to encourage more people to use bicycles, as in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.
The French government targets 9 percent of its citizens to switch to bicycles by 2024, an increase compared to the current 3 percent.
This figure is certainly still far below the Netherlands, which recorded around 27 percent of its citizens using bicycles. The policy was inspired by a very successful program in Lithuania.
France doesn’t just spend money on individual incentives. Emmanuel Macron’s government has also said it will invest €250 million to make the city of Paris fully cycling.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who won re-election last year vowed to add 130 kilometers of safe bicycle lanes over the next five years.
Not only developing electric bicycles, Porsche is also producing propulsion motors for e-bikes
