BUCHAREST, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Romanian Energy Minister Anton Anton said on Monday that his country has much to do to popularize the use of electric vehicles, and he complained the lack of charging stations between big cities.

According to him, there are many charging stations in big cities like Bucharest, the capital city, and Constanta, a city in southeastern Romania, but this does not happen on the road between the two cities.

"So we have to work on that," he stressed.

In the three years since the opening of the first charging station for electric vehicles, their number reached 130 units in Romania.

The number of charging stations in Romania is extremely small compared to other countries. For example, there are 24,000-25,000 charging stations in Germany and France, and more than 35,000 load points in the Netherlands, according to the European Alternative Fuels Observatory.

The Romanian energy minister promised in June this year to set up 20,000 charging stations in the next four years.

As many as 2,922 new eco-friendly cars (electric and hybrid) were sold in Romania in the first three quarters of 2018, almost doubled compared to the same period of last year, according to the latest data released by the Automotive Manufacturers and Importers Association.