Market share of alternative drives continues to grow in Germany – energy agency
Clean Energy Wire
New registrations of cars with alternative drive systems continue to grow in Germany despite an overall drop in sales in the automotive industry, the national energy agency dena has said. From January to October 2020, almost 22 percent of registered vehicles are powered by alternative drive systems, such as electricity or gas, up from only 8.8 percent in the previous year. The strongest growth in registrations was seen for plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), with an increase of 291 percent compared to 2019, and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), with an increase of 129 percent. Smaller increases are reported for hybrids without external charging (66%) and natural gas vehicles (6%).
Agency head Andreas Kuhlmann said the German government's stimulus package had been the main driver As part of the economic stimulus package, the government’s share of funding doubled to 6,000 euros. "Now the momentum must be used to ensure that consumers buy low-emission cars without subsidies in the medium term. As our charging infrastructure study shows, this includes accelerating the expansion of the public charging infrastructure,” Kuhlmann said.
Reducing emissions in the transport sector is a particularly hard part of the German energy transition, with passenger cars still clearly dominating mobility habits. The take-up of electric vehicles has been slow in Germany compared to other markets but registrations of e-cars have picked up sharply in the past months. In October, the share of pure electric car registrations reached a record share of 8.4 per cent.
