Demand for Germany’s e-car subsidy remains low

Demand for subsidised electric vehicles in Germany remains far below the level hoped for. By the end of March 2018, authorities had received a total of 57,549 applications for an e-car buyer’s premium, the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (Bafa) says in a press release. The government aimed to boost demand for e-cars to meet its goal of putting 1 million of them on the road by 2020. At the beginning of 2018, there were 53,861 e-cars and 44,419 plug-in hybrids registered in Germany, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA).
Stefan Kapferer, head of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), says it is carmakers’ responsibility to offer customers “attractive and affordable” vehicles, and “ambitious” CO₂ limit values for vehicles would be far more effective at spurring a transition towards low-emission vehicles. He argues that the energy sector has already provided the charging infrastructure to get e-mobility off the ground but cannot operate it at a profit because there are so few e-cars in use. “We need to avoid this sort of chicken-or-egg dilemma,” Kapferer said.

Find the Bafa press release in German here and the BDEW press release in German here.

For background, see CLEW’s dossier on the energy transition and Germany’s transport sector here.