“Gain fans”

There is to date no sensible reason to buy an electric car, writes Markus Fasse in a commentary for Handelsblatt. “Even Daimler’s CEO, Dieter Zetsche, admits that,” Fasse writes, explaining that e-cars are too expensive, have a limited cruising range, lack a dense recharging network and take too long to reload. “Car drivers calculate unemotionally,” he says, adding that “the same goes for car producers” who currently still make a lot more money with conventional cars. Therefore, political pressure and regulations are needed to meet climate targets for the transport sector – “but explaining to customers why they should drive cars in the future that today can’t even be sold with subsidies” will also be a challenging task, Fasse writes.

For more information on the prospects of e-mobility in Germany, see the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.