The so-called environmental bonus has been intended to boost sales of e-cars and plug-in hybrids in Germany since 2016. However, some applications for such a bonus are not approved.
Berlin (dpa) - More than one in four applications for the purchase bonus for cars with electric drives has not yet been approved. The approval rate for the 234,805 applications submitted by the end of July was 73 percent, as the federal government announced to the Bundestag at the request of the FDP.
The federal state with the lowest rate was therefore Saarland with 70 percent, the highest in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia with 76 percent. Reasons for this are not listed in the answer.
"The rejections of funding applications for e-cars are particularly high," said the FDP transport politician Bernd Reuther of the German press agency. "That is why the federal government has to get to the bottom of the cause here. As a result, it must not shy away from addressing structural problems and taking corrective action."
The so-called environmental bonus has been intended to boost sales of e-cars and plug-in hybrids in Germany since 2016. Since the federal government increased it sharply as part of the Corona economic stimulus package, the number of funding applications has climbed to a record high.
As the Federal Ministry of Economics had announced, the so-called innovation bonus - that's the name of the currently increased environmental bonus - had been applied for 19,993 times in July. Since the beginning of the year, 69,606 applications have been made, 78.6 percent more than in the same period last year.
So far, the state and the car manufacturer had shared the premium in equal parts, now the state has doubled its share in order to promote the ailing auto industry. The increased premium is valid until the end of 2021. Pure electric cars are subsidized with up to 9,000 euros. Environmentalists criticize the fact that plug-in hybrids - with up to 6750 euros - are subsidized, since the electric drive does not have to be used with these. As the answer from the federal government shows, 85,782 plug-in hybrids have been funded since the start of the environmental bonus, making them around 36.5 percent.
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