Charge your electric car for free in Tbilisi:
City welcomes first charging station

Electric cars are the way of the future and Georgia’s capital Tbilisi is leading the nation in developing infrastructure to encourage more people to buy and use electric vehicles.

The first special charging point for electric cars has been installed in the city’s Vake district, at Nugzar Endeladze Square, close to Vake Park.

Local company Espace, which is responsible for installing the new charging points in Tbilisi, announced after these first two points, it intended to build a further 25 charging areas throughout the city by the end of 2016.

Meanwhile, next year the company aimed to introduce 100 new charging docks in Tbilisi, in Georgia’s popular Black Sea resort town Batumi and in Kutaisi, the country's third largest city.

The first charging point was installed in Tbilisi's Vake district. Photo by Maryam Alughishvili/Facebook.

People who drive an electric car will be able to charge the batteries of their vehicles for free during 2016-2017. But going forward it will cost users to charge their cars.

It takes about three hours to fully charge an electric car battery, which will then be able to travel up to 400km at a moderate speed.

As of today there are about 50 electric cars in Tbilisi.

As well as installing the charging stations, Espace had plans to expand its business activities and begin importing electric cars to country.

An Espace spokesperson said Georgia had favourable conditions for importing electric cars as they were exempt from custom fees. And this encouraged more imports of electric cars over typical petrol-powered vehicles, he explained.