German petrol station operators look for new business models as e-cars loom

German petrol stations are struggling for new business models as a breakthrough for electric vehicles appears just around the corner, Michael Ashelm and Bernd Freytag write for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Instead of marching ahead, an entire industry remains practically paralysed,” the article says. Esso and Total currently offer e-cars charging points at only about 2 percent of their over 1,000 locations in Germany, the article says. “There is no economically viable business concept for country-wide charging stations,” BP’s German subsidiary Aral told the newspaper. According to Dirk Claussen, head of the German Petroleum Industry Association (MWV), it is not yet clear that fossil fuels will be entirely replaced by electricity, and synthetic fuels could also play an important role in the future of mobility. “Basically, Aral, Shell and the others are in the dark as far as the future of petrol stations is concerned,” the authors write.

See the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers for background on the development of e-cars in the combustion engine’s birth country.