Many inadequacies arise in practice
The transition to green transportation is being strongly promoted by the Government, but in reality, in many large cities, a paradox has appeared: People buy electric cars but have no parking space.
In apartment buildings, old apartments and even some new apartments, households face difficulties when parking electric motorbikes. This inadequacy is causing many people to fall into a dilemma. Electric vehicles are encouraged to be used for cost savings and emission reduction, but are not treated equally in parking infrastructure.
Not only causing inconvenience, banning or restricting electric vehicles at parking lots is also considered to go against the green transformation policy that the Government is promoting. When infrastructure does not keep up with vehicles, the burden falls on people's shoulders, while parking lots are almost not under pressure to change, invest or upgrade safety conditions.
Many opinions believe that the fact that some parking lots "avoid" electric vehicles does not entirely stem from safety factors, but mainly because they are afraid of incurring investment costs, afraid of changing operating models. The prejudice that electric vehicles are "high fire and explosion risk" still exists quite commonly. However, according to many international statistics, the fire and explosion rate of electric vehicles is lower than vehicles using fossil fuels many times. Most fire incidents related to electric vehicles originate from improper battery charging, substandard charging infrastructure or arbitrarily renovated, temporarily connected. This shows that the core problem does not lie in the vehicle itself, but in the lack of standards and lack of synchronous infrastructure investment.
Towards legalizing electric vehicle parking
The Ministry of Construction is seeking opinions on the draft amendment of the National Technical Regulation on QCVN 04:2021/BXD apartment buildings, which is considered an important step to "legalize" electric vehicle parking spaces.
According to the draft, the electric vehicle parking area must be within the approved project area. If it cannot be arranged outdoors or on the ground, it must be arranged on the parking spot in the apartment building.
Not stopping at the location requirements, the draft also sets out specific technical criteria to ensure safety. The electric vehicle parking area must be arranged near the entrance, near the slope; if placed in the basement, it must be convenient for ventilation and access for firefighters. In particular, the Ministry of Construction proposes separating the electric vehicle parking area from vehicles using internal combustion engines, and at the same time separating the electric car parking area and the two-wheeled electric vehicle parking area. The minimum distance between the areas is 2m, if not guaranteed, walls or thick partitions made of non-flammable materials must be used, with a minimum height of 2m.
The draft also proposes regulations on fire prevention and fighting for electric vehicle charging areas in apartment buildings. The charging area must be arranged into a separate fire compartment, continuously monitored, install automatic fire alarm and fire fighting systems, early fire detection cameras, and an independent ventilation and exhaust system. Warning signals must be transmitted to the 24/24 on-duty room. These requirements show a methodical approach.
Legalizing electric vehicle parking spaces becomes urgent as the number of electric vehicles in Vietnam is increasing rapidly.Currently, the whole country has about 6.7 million cars, including 200,000 electric cars; about 70 million motorbikes, including nearly 3 million electric motorbikes.In Ho Chi Minh City alone, the number of electric vehicles has reached nearly 40,000 electric cars and nearly 87,000 electric motorbikes.Electric vehicles, especially electric vehicles for transportation business, are becoming an indispensable part of urban traffic.
Ho Chi Minh City currently has about 1,000 charging stations, most of which are slow charging poles.Although the number of charging poles basically meets the general recommendations of the world on the ratio of vehicles per charger pole, actual operation shows that there is still a shortage of fast charging poles, a shortage of battery exchange points, especially in densely populated residential areas, apartments, and collective houses.This further highlights the role of mandatory regulations in construction standards.
Looking at the reality in the country, the amendment of QCVN 04:2021/BXD not only solves the technical problem for apartment buildings, but also sends a clear message: Electric vehicles are an inevitable trend and infrastructure must go one step ahead. When electric vehicle parking spaces are legalized, parking lots will not be able to rely on the reason of "fear of risk" to refuse green vehicles.
More importantly, this contributes to "relieving thirst" for people, who are directly implementing green transformation by making daily consumption decisions. Energy transformation will not be successful if people have to manage themselves in an infrastructure system that has not kept up. Legalizing electric vehicle parking spaces is not just a story of construction standards, but a necessary step for the green policy to go into life in a substantive way.
