E. Bekiaris: smart investments for a new role of Greece in Electromobility

On Friday, October 1st, the Director of HIT/CERTH and President of HELIEV (www.heliev.gr) Dr. E. Bekiaris presented the present and the future of Electromobility during the session "Electric vehicles: "Green" enough?" of the 5th Sustainability Summit for South-east Europe and the Mediterranean by the Economist” (https://events.economist.com/events-conferences/emea/the-fifth-sustainability-summit-for-se-europe-and-the-mediterranean/

In his presentation Dr. Bekiaris provided answers to important questions related to Electromobility, and in particular, to where Greece stands and what priorities it has. Moreover, he spoke about the biggest challenges of Electromobility internationally, and about the future of electric vehicle batteries in terms of technology. He discussed whether the electromobility is beneficial for the environment, even when using non-clean energy sources, and whether the autonomy of electric vehicles is sufficient today and what is the biggest relevant challenge of the future.

In his presentation Dr. Bekiaris emphasized the fact that the European Union assigns great amounts for the research on the batteries. “Among the 10 European Companies involved in battery research, one is Greek”, said Dr. Bekiaris. “The object of the batteries, their recycling as well as the recycling of the electronic systems of the electric cars is an “El Dorado” for Greece. Although Greece has lost the opportunity of automobile industry due to the small size of the market, in case of the electromobility our country can become a supplier of subsystems (TIER2 and TIER3) and software for the batteries as well as the entire electrical circuit of cars, by the standards of Croatia”, he said, emphasizing that “The time has come for Greece to make smart investments in order to have an important role in the new world.