Rabla Plus, the Romanian Government’s cash for Clunkers program will have a budget for about 6,600 new fully electric cars, double than that of last year, and the scrapping premium for Rabla Classic will increase from 6,500 to 7,500 lei, Barna Tanczos, the Environment Minister announced on Tuesday. The Rabla program launches in the last week of April. The budget and premiums increase come amid increased interest buyers have shown for the new, fully electric Dacia Spring model, which they can buy at a discounted price with a Rabla ticket.
Thus, the budget of the program “Rabla Classic 2021” will increase by 10% compared to the previous year, from 405 million lei to 440 million lei. Under this program, a person may receive a maximum of 2,250 euros cumulatively with the two eco-bonuses.
“The Rabla Classic program helps both citizens and the local industry with those vouchers that are used to renew the car park. This year we will change the scrapping premium in the program and increase it from 6,500 to 7,500 lei, or about 1,500 euros, which will be paid to those who hand over a registered old car, and sign-up with the dealer for a new one; thus old and polluting cars will be removed from the roads. Under the Rabla Classic program, in addition to the scrapping premium, there are two additional eco-bonuses for those who buy cars with hybrid technologies. In these cases, the eco-bonus is increased from 2,500 lei to 3,000 lei, and in the case of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (GPL) cars with emissions below 96 grams of CO2, the bonus increases from 1,000 lei to 1,500 lei,” Tanczos said.
Regarding this year’s edition of the “Rabla Plus” program, the budget allocated will be 400 million lei, double the amount in 2020. “This year’s budget allows for the purchase of 6,600 fully-electric cars and about 5,000 plug-in hybrid cars,” the minister noted.
“We have seen the citizens’ special interest in these clean electric cars. We want to see as many electric cars as possible on the roads in Romania. Now only 1% of the cars on the road in the country are electric,” the minister said in the press conference.
The Rabla (Classic and Plus) program launches in the last week of the next month and will subsidize the purchase of about 60,000 new cars with internal combustion engines, hybrid propulsion, and 100% electric.
Translation: Ovidiu Harfas