Leading conservatives from German states call for extending e-car buyer's premium

Leading figures of Germany's conservative CDU/CSU alliance have called for extending the country's buyer's premium scheme for electric cars in order to consolidate a trend towards electric mobility that has started to gain traction this year, business daily Handelsblatt reports. Bavaria's state premier Markus Söder (CSU) said the support scheme should be extended beyond the current 2021 deadline by three or four years "if we really want to make progress on the transformation process." Söder argued citizens were keenly using the premium and that it would help to strengthen Germany's leading expertise in the automotive sector. Extending the scheme would lead to "higher public acceptance" of the technology and help secure jobs in the country, Söder argued. He was seconded by Lower Saxony's economy minister Bernd Althusmann (CDU), who said extending the premium would "make sense" and help maintain the current momentum, which should also be backed by a "more targeted" expansion of charging infrastructure.

Bavaria and Lower Saxony are both home to carmakers BMW and Volkswagen, respectively, and therefore have a high interest in keeping sales figures up. Söder, who is seen as a possible successor to Angela Merkel after the next election in autumn 2021, recently irked the car industry by suggesting Germany could introduce a ban on combustion engines by 2035. "Let's be honest: we define climate targets, the European Union is making a Green Deal. What I've heard in debates in the European Parliament is that 2035 would even be too late," he had told Handelsblatt in an interview.