Mauritius is stepping up its strategy toward a greener and cleaner environment by significantly reducing CO2 emissions on its roads. In the pipeline: the installation of 30 electric charging stations across the island by end 2025.

This announcement was made by Land Transport and Light Rail Minister Alan Ganoo during the unveiling of the first rebranded TotalEnergies petrol pump at Belle Vue.

“I am very pleased to announce this new project which aims at promoting sustainable consumption and meeting the energy needs in view of the expected increase in the number of electric vehicles. It also goes towards encouraging the use of electric vehicles whose sales are increasing year after year in Mauritius. This tendency could further go up with the rise in fuel costs”, Minister Ganoo said.

Relentless price spiral

Prices of fuel have soared exponentially over the past four months. Mogas (unleaded petrol) went up from Rs 61.30 in February to Rs74.10 a litre last week while gas oil (diesel) went from Rs45.10 to Rs 54.55 a litre. And the price hike is likely to further exacerbate in the coming weeks and months as a direct sequel to the war in Ukraine and the unfavourable exchange rate of the rupee to the dollar.

With the seemingly relentless spiralling pricing policy, more and more Mauritians will have no choice than to switch to electric vehicles. A study commissioned by the government in 2020 had proposed the installation of 30 charging stations by 2025 to cater for an estimated number of 5,500 Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) expected to be in use by 2025. As of March 2022 however, only 641 electric vehicles were registered at the National Land Transport Authority.