Eastern Germany strong regarding country's electric vehicle production

Around half of all e-cars made in Germany are being produced in the eastern states, despite the region only representing 10 percent of the national automotive workforce – making electric mobility an important part of the states’ economies, reports news agency dpa in an article in Die Welt. According to the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), around 294,000 e-cars were built in the eastern states in 2022, and 10 percent of all research and design spending in the region went towards electric vehicles. "The eastern states are frontrunners in terms of transformation," VDA president Hildegard Müller told dpa. At a company meeting near the eastern German town of Erfurt, Müller said that she expected the total number in 2023 to be even higher but warned that financial challenges also lie ahead. She called for the electricity tax to be lowered to the European minimum in order to help manufacturers.

After a difficult transformation period following German reunification in the 1990s, eastern states have built strong industrial centres in some regions, with investments coming mostly from western German companies but increasingly also from international investors. Several firms are currently producing e-cars in the region including Tesla, which opened its much-publicised “Gigafactory” in the state of Brandenburg in March 2022. Eastern German states on average have a higher share of renewable power, a factor that is increasingly becoming important for companies looking for a secure supply of clean energy to decarbonise their production.