It took longer, but now the thing is through. The federal government wants to boost the approach of electric vehicles with a higher premium. This is also necessary if climate goals are to be achieved.
Berlin (dpa) - Buyers of electric cars will soon receive significantly more money from the state. The EU Commission gave the green light for higher purchase premiums, as the Federal Ministry of Economics in Berlin announced.
The new funding rates are applicable to all vehicles that were registered after November 4, 2019.
Economy Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) spoke of a good signal. The new funding guidelines will come into force in February. Buyers then benefited from increased subsidy rates for purely electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
The federal government had already decided on the higher funding in its climate protection program last September, but the subsequent procedure with the participation of Brussels dragged on.
Specifically, the funding for vehicles up to a list price of 40,000 euros is now increasing from the current 4,000 euros to 6,000 euros. For cars with a list price of more than 40,000 euros, the subsidy should be 5,000 euros in the future, which means that funding will increase by 25 percent. This applies to purely battery-electric vehicles as well as to plug-in hybrids. The industry will continue to participate half in the so-called environmental bonus, it said.
The last question was that the higher premium costs billions. The federal government and industry each contributed 600 million euros to the existing purchase premium.
The federal government and auto industry agreed at a top meeting in November that industry would continue to participate. It was also agreed to expand the charging network for electric cars more quickly. The federal government had presented a "charging infrastructure master plan". The goal is a nationwide and customer-friendly charging network.
New registrations of electric cars are increasing, but they have not yet made a breakthrough on the mass market. Electromobility plays a central role in the federal government's climate protection program, which aims to achieve the 2030 climate targets, particularly in traffic. For this, a number of 7 to 10 million electric cars in Germany will be considered necessary by 2030.
In order for Germany to achieve the climate targets for 2030, the transport sector in particular must deliver. However, many experts doubt that the measures that have been decided so far are sufficient, such as greater government funding for the purchase of electric cars. CO2 emissions in traffic have hardly decreased in recent years due to a higher volume of traffic. In addition, there has been a boom in sales of SUVs, heavy sports SUVs for years.
The car industry with hundreds of thousands of employees is currently undergoing fundamental change. On the one hand, industry has to invest billions in new technologies such as e-mobility, also in order to be able to comply with stricter EU requirements. On the other hand, the earnings situation of many companies has deteriorated due to the downturn in the global automotive markets. So far, this has mainly affected suppliers, there are short-time working and announcements of job cuts.
The coalition had decided that it would be easier for employees to receive extended short-time work benefits. This should be linked to further training. This is to create the conditions for employees who are at risk of losing their jobs to be able to switch to other industries and companies.
