EU rebukes Germany over lack of green fuels service stations, mulls proceedings

The EU Commission has criticised the German government for not making sufficient progress on setting up a countrywide network of service stations offering charging points, hydrogen or natural gas, which are seen as a prerequisite for lowering emissions in the transport sector, Niklaus Doll writes on Welt Online. According to the article, the Commission has started the second stage of treaty violation proceedings as it sees Germany in breach of the directive on alternative fuels for sustainable mobility (AFID), which aims to ensure that e-cars and other vehicles with alternative engines are given an adequate infrastructure which allows their use across Europe. While Germany has started to work on expanding the physical infrastructure, the Commission says Germany’s transport ministry so far has failed to come up with harmonising technical aspects with European standards, which made it difficult for car owners from abroad to use it.

While Germany has so far failed to meet its national targets for the roll-out of e-cars, the country’s biggest carmakers now all have ambitious plans to ramp up the output and sales of electric vehicles in the 2020s, which might lead to a sudden boost in demand for charging stations. Berlin start-up Ubitricity seeks to satisfy rising demand for charging stations by using existing street lights to charge e-cars, an approach that recently gained it 20 million euros in funding.