Germans more sceptical about e-cars than other Europeans – survey
Clean Energy Wire
No other country in Europe is as sceptical of the success of e-mobility as Germany, an international survey commissioned by energy company E.ON has found. About one third of respondents in Germany said they believe there will never be more e-cars than cars with combustion engines on German roads, and only 13 percent said they believe the balance could be tipped in favour of e-cars within the next ten years. “Especially in Southern Europe people are a lot more optimistic about the breakthrough of e-mobility,” E.ON said in a press release. In Turkey, 43 percent say e-cars could outnumber conventional cars within the next decade. In Italy, 37 percent said this would be the case. German opinion appeared to be more in line with that prevailing in the Czech Republic or Hungary, where 15 percent and 14 percent respectively were optimistic about e-mobility’s breakthrough. “The results are surprising, especially since huge progress has been made in recent years with respect to charging infrastructure, product choice, range and prices of offered cars,” the company said. E.ON board member Karsten Wildberger said a “holistic approach” to e-mobility was key for the technology’s success in Germany. “With a combination of innovative solutions by the car industry and initial support by the state we can turn Germany from a laggard to a pioneer,” he said.
A massive roll-out of electric cars is seen as one of the measures necessary to achieve emissions reduction in Germany’s transport sector consistent with the country’s internationally binding climate targets. A government task force charged with proposing ways to reduce the transport sector’s carbon footprint recently failed to find compromise on a number of controversial measures, such as higher fuel prices, but agreed on supporting e-mobility at a large scale. Transport minister Andreas Scheuer said in order for Germany to abide by its climate targets, 10 million e-cars were needed on the road by 2030. At the beginning of 2019, there were about 47 million passenger cars in Germany, out of which just over 83,000 had a purely electric propulsion system.
