ATHENS – Greece’s New Democracy government’s push to get people to buy electric vehicles, offering them subsidies, doesn’t include using hybrid buses that could use gasoline and electricitity.

Bids to buy 770 buses for the aging fleet of the Athens Urban Transport Organization (OASA) – after being postponed six times – are open again but none of the suppliers has offered hybrids, said Kathimerini.

Sources not named told the paper that there are four bidders but that the country’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, froze part of the tender to buy 100 hybrid-technology vehicles after one of the manufacturers appealed.

The case will be heard on May 9 but the paper said none of the makers want to supply hybrid vehicles and it wasn’t explained why the agency doesn’t insist upon it or throw out those who don’t comply.

OASA is expected to turn to leasing as an option. The first buses are expected in the first half of 2023, further adding to long delays in supplementing and replacing buses that often are in disrepair and sidelined for long periods.