Jürg Grossen, we’re meeting in Frutigen, where you live and work. The Bernese Oberland isn’t exactly a car-sharing hotspot. Does that bother you?
You have to look at it from different perspectives. As you’d expect, I’m a convinced advocate of car sharing. At the same time, I know that owning a car is still very important, especially in rural areas. That’s understandable. Public transport’s often sparse in places like that, and residential areas are more spread out. Having your own car means freedom and flexibility. I see car sharing potential in rural areas, especially in the business sector.
In what way?
We’ve had a pool of electric vehicles in our company for many years; that pool now consists of ten models of various makes. Our employees can use them whenever they want. Alongside the flexibility that the fleet model offers our employees, the electric cars are reducing our CO₂ emissions – and all this with far lower operating and maintenance costs.
Electric is a good keyword. Electric car sales have slowed. What’s the problem?
That’s right, new registrations are stagnating – and that’s a problem. One reason for this is that Switzerland has fleet targets that are too low. This discourages importers from bringing e-cars into the country this year. That said, from 2025 significantly higher fleet targets and stricter CO₂ regulations for new cars – in line with the EU – should reignite the market.
And yet the technical environment in Switzerland seems ideal: to give one example, the charging infrastructure’s continuously expanding.
You have to distinguish between infrastructure in the public and private spheres. Much has been done in the public sector in recent years, such as on the motorways. However, the situation is different in the private sphere, where there’s a major issue.
Can you elaborate on that?
Sales of electric cars are stagnating, not least because charging facilities in many properties involving multiple owners or tenants are being delayed or even prevented altogether. While owners of single-family homes have full control over whether they install a charge point or not, people living in multiple-occupancy premises are dependent on the goodwill of their landlords.
And because Switzerland’s a country of tenants, this is of particular interest.
Yes, exactly. Over 70 per cent of the Swiss population lives in rented, condominium or cooperative housing. With the lowest home ownership rate in Europe, we’re very badly placed when it comes to encouraging electromobility. That’s why I’m so pleased that the National Council has recognised the need for action and recently adopted my motion “Electric car charging for tenancies and condominiums”.
What are you trying to achieve with this?
The motion’s aimed at establishing a basic principle that charging projects cannot be blocked. I like to draw a comparison here with the Confederation’s Telecommunications Act, which stipulates a right to internet access in homes. I see the fact that the motion was carried in the National Council with 110 votes in favour as an important step.
« The more e-cars Mobility has in its fleet, the easier and cheaper it is for people to give the technology a try. »
Another hot political topic is the country’s transport infrastructure. The end of November finds Switzerland voting on a huge expansion of its motorway network. Your opinion on this?
From the point of view of personal mobility, it makes sense for roads to be maintained and to be sorted out where there are bottlenecks. However, the plans being put forward are not about eliminating bottlenecks, but a clear expansion. That’s going too far.
That said, it’s a fact that traffic is gridlocked up and down the country – every day and not just at rush hour.
Adding lanes won’t change this. It’s far more important that we adopt a more intelligent approach going forward – such as making progress in terms of traffic management. Or investing even more in innovative mobility concepts. Rather than more asphalt and concrete, we need more intelligence.
Intelligence is also making cars available to multiple people. It’s called car sharing.
(Laughs) The shared use of vehicles, as promoted by Mobility, is set to grow in importance. The fact that Mobility has also set itself the goal of electrifying its existing fleet has to be seen in a positive light. In addition to the obvious points, there’s another, more subtle argument in favour of e-car sharing that shouldn’t be underestimated.
Which is?
The more e-cars Mobility has in its fleet, the easier and cheaper it is for people to give the technology a try. This might help overcome people’s reservations.
New technologies always need time. What’s your opinion of the V2X project and the use of electric cars as mobile power banks?
That’s the future. Our company’s already using bidirectional charging technologies – and I’m confident that this approach will become mainstream in time.
What makes you so confident?
With the new Federal Electricity Supply Act, voters decided in June 2024 that solar energy should be given a boost. Solar arrays are mainly installed on buildings – which is where electric cars tend to be charged. That’s why it makes so much sense to connect electric cars to solar energy via bidirectional charging technology.
What’s the advantage of that?
It’s simple: if you have a lot of solar electricity, you can charge the electric car at a high charging rate. Then when the sun’s no longer shining, like at night, this battery can be used to supply the building – or even the grid, which significantly reduces the need to expand it. I believe that bidirectional charging technology is a key element of the energy transition that’s coming.
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