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Disadvantage of the electric car: cheaper fuel
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
The electric car is seen as a climate hope in traffic - which is why governments subsidize the purchase of the electric vehicle with massive taxpayers' money.
In Germany, drivers get 6,000 euros from the state for free.
In addition, due to the reform of the vehicle tax, e-cars are tax-free until 2025, park for free in many inner cities and are taxed low as company cars.
In view of the subsidy rain, something is being forgotten that the e-car is in danger of losing one of its own advantages for which no state aid is required: the low operating costs compared to cars with gasoline or diesel engines.
The promise that electric drives are cheaper is shaky.
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An example: In June - before the temporary reduction in VAT - the price for diesel averaged 108.6 cents according to ADAC.
According to ADAC Ecotest, a current Golf with a 150 PS two-liter TDI consumes 4.8 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers.
The costs would be 5.21 euros.
eGolf more expensive than a diesel per 100 kilometers
For comparison: According to ADAC Ecotest, a VW eGolf consumes 17.3 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers.
At a household electricity price of 31 cents per kilowatt hour, the cost would be 5.36 euros - more than a comparable diesel.
The idea that an electric car finances itself over the years thanks to lower travel costs no longer works.
Lower energy costs are currently not an argument in favor of buying an electric car, says Eric Heymann, economist at Deutsche Bank Research.
"At the moment you would only have to charge at home in order to keep up with the costs of a combustion engine."
Heymann adds that charging is often even more expensive, especially at public charging stations or fast charging stations.
This has a particularly strong effect on motorways.
For example, at Ionity, an operator of numerous fast charging stations on motorways, a kilowatt hour costs 77 cents.
For 100 kilometers of driving with the eGolf, 13.32 euros are due there - more than double that compared to the diesel Golf.
The energy costs of alternative drives are therefore developing in the opposite direction to vehicle prices, explains economist Heymann.
"In the next few years, even in the volume segment, e-cars will no longer be much more expensive than models with a combustion engine," said Heymann.
"If you want to convince the mass of buyers of the e-car, its operating costs have to be lower than those of a combustion engine."
Plug-in hybrids could be loaded even less frequently
This disadvantage will become an obstacle for electromobility in the future.
Because drivers generally look closely at the costs per kilometer driven.
The loss of value - although the largest cost factor in car ownership - plays a subordinate role for many private customers, according to the economist.
E-cars also benefit from lower maintenance costs because they have fewer wearing parts.
However, the higher energy costs not only make pure electric cars more expensive to operate.
"Especially with the already controversial plug-in hybrids, this can mean that it is cheaper to fill up with gasoline or diesel than to charge electricity at the charging station and drive electrically," warns Ruth Blanck from the Ökoinstitut.
From an ecological point of view, this is a problem, according to Blanck, "as the drivers can decide anew every day whether to refuel or recharge".
In the case of plug-in hybrids with a diesel engine in particular, refueling quickly becomes more attractive than the more time-consuming charging.
With a power consumption in purely electric driving mode of around 22 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers, this route would cost 6.82 euros at a price of 31 cents per kilowatt hour.
The Mercedes E300de, a diesel plug-in, consumed 6.2 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers with an empty battery in the "Autobild" test.
At a diesel price of 108.6 cents per liter as in June, the 100 kilometers cost only 6.73 euros.
Higher fuel prices will probably be difficult to enforce
With the more widespread gasoline hybrids, purely electric driving is usually cheaper - with both, however, there is an additional problem: Plug-in hybrids are popular company cars due to their lower taxation.
If the employer has a fuel card for it, the incentive to actually charge the vehicle is even lower.
A British study showed that numerous service plug-ins apparently never loaded.
"If the trend of falling oil prices continues and there is no political countermeasures, that would be a catastrophic signal," warns Ruth Blanck.
In Germany, they are concentrating too much on bringing electric cars onto the market, but too little is being done to make combustion engines less attractive.
"The energy costs of a combustion engine must not be lower than those of an electric car. In the long term, electric driving must be cheaper," says Blanck.
However, both Blanck and the economist Heymann believe that electricity prices have been reduced through subsidies.
Heymann explains that the state can gradually increase taxes on fossil fuels with a transition period to make the external costs of burning fossil fuels more visible.
Here, however, it is questionable whether this is feasible in a country with over 40 million drivers.
Electricity price is expected to remain at a high level
The CO2 surcharge of around 7.5 cents per liter, which will apply from 2021, goes in the right direction, according to Heymann: "But it is - extrapolated to one liter of fuel - not particularly large," says Heymann.
If you believe the economist, the problem of the comparatively high energy costs for electric driving will not change next year either.
It would be naive to trust in the sharp rise in oil prices, said Heymann.
In fact, oil multinational BP is now expecting a sharp drop in demand for oil, which would dampen the price.
In the best case scenario, there is no increase in the price of electricity, falling prices are unrealistic.
The comparison portal Verivox also assumes that electricity prices will stagnate at a high level in the coming year, a spokesman said on request.
The EEG surcharge is capped at 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour, but one reckons with rising prices in wholesale and also with no relief in the network charges.
Economist Heymann: "The problem of the operating cost disadvantage of e-cars will therefore probably remain."
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