Aarhus Municipality is abolishing the popular scheme of free parking for electric cars after four years. This will have consequences for both electric car owners in the city, according to FDM.
It has been free to park an electric car in Aarhus since 2021, but it will soon be prohibited.
The scheme has allowed electric cars to park for free for up to four hours in municipal parking spaces. But from October 1, 2025, that will end. Electric cars will have to pay the same price for parking as other cars.
This is what Aarhus Stiftstidende writes.
Aarhus Municipality introduced free parking to promote the green transition. Electric cars have been able to park for free for four hours per day. Users have had to register the car via app or payment machine. In this way, the municipality wanted to ensure that no one abused the scheme.
But now the municipality is withdrawing the offer because many more electric cars have arrived. Between 2021 and 2024, the municipal treasury has also added 20 million kroner in lost revenue from parking. This is a greater loss than expected, the city government admits.
There have been both more electric cars and the price of parking has increased. When the scheme was introduced, there were 2,018 electric cars in Aarhus in December 2020. By December 2024, the number had increased to 23,450 electric cars.
Yet the interest group is critical of the way Aarhus municipality treats people in electric cars.
FDM believes that Aarhus Municipality is going in the wrong direction. When free parking disappears, only charging stations will remain. Here you can often park for free for the first three hours.
Steffen Arnbo Nielsen is a project manager in Aarhus Municipality. He knows that it can cause problems when the free parking ends. And here the municipality actually agrees with FDM to some extent.
"It's true what FDM says. Electric car drivers may want to use the charging points as parking spaces because they are free. We are aware of that, and we will look into that towards the end of the scheme," he tells Århus Stiftstidende.
It is expected that there will be great pressure on the charging points, even if people do not need to charge their electric cars.
The abolition of free parking could have several consequences. Electric car owners will now have to pay for parking, which could make it more expensive to have an electric car in Aarhus.
It can also reduce the incentive to choose an electric car. At the same time, the increased pressure on charging points can make it more difficult for electric car owners to find a place to charge their car. This is especially a problem if you live in an area without charging options.
It is still unknown how the abolition of free parking will affect electric car sales and the use of charging stations in Aarhus.
