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Charging stations for e-cars at the Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide (Brandenburg): From 2023 there will be significantly fewer subsidies when buying an e-car
Photo: Jochen Eckel / IMAGO
Last minute panic is likely to affect some who have ordered an electric car and are expecting the purchase premium applicable for 2022.
Plug-in hybrids will no longer be subsidized from January 1, 2023, and the premiums for the purchase of pure electric cars are also expected to drop sharply.
Getting the papers by December 31 makes a difference of several thousand euros.
But that could go wrong, warn the Association of the Automotive Industry, the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and the Central Association of German Motor Trades, according to the “Handelsblatt”.
The problem: the premiums are only paid if the car is registered in good time, i.e. before January 1st.
But that is only possible if the registration offices are also open over the upcoming Christmas holidays.
"We are currently receiving worrying reports that some registration offices want to close in the middle of the month," the associations reported in an open letter to the municipal umbrella organizations.
Some offices are no longer offering appointments.
Date of approval decides on premium
The automotive industry is therefore appealing to the municipalities to "maintain the ability of the vehicle registration offices to work in the last few days of this year so that vehicles with alternative drives can still be registered in the current year".
According to the report, the Federal Ministry of Economics rejects a goodwill arrangement.
The industry has had enough time to adapt to the new bonus rules and to deliver the desired vehicles on time.
So far, the purchase of so-called plug-in hybrids with a combustion engine and a chargeable electric drive has been subsidized by the state and manufacturers with up to 6,750 euros.
From January 1, 2023, there will no longer be a purchase premium in the segment.
The climate balance of hybrids is considered doubtful, as they are often particularly heavy with their two engines.
In addition, only the combustion engine is often driven, the range of the electric motor is low.
Record number of new electric cars in November
At the end of the week, the Federal Ministry of Economics wants to publish the new funding guidelines for pure electric cars.
Vehicles with a list price of up to 40,000 euros net will be subsidized by the state and manufacturers from next year with 6750 euros, so far it has been 9000 euros.
For more expensive e-cars up to 65,000 euros, the subsidy drops by 3,000 to a maximum of 4,500 euros.
From 2024, the purchase premiums are expected to decrease further and expire in 2025.
It could possibly end earlier because the subsidy will be limited to a fixed total budget of 2.5 billion euros in the future.
A spur-of-the-moment purchase to get hold of the higher bonus quickly is hardly possible.
Already in the first half of the year, many manufacturers reported delivery times for new electric cars that extended to 2023 or even 2024.
A number of models cannot currently be ordered at all because the production capacity is fully booked.
Individual manufacturers still guarantee the full premium for purchase contracts concluded before the end of the year at their own expense.
At the same time, however, the list prices are also rising sharply.
Nevertheless, there is a year-end rally in the registration statistics.
According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) in Flensburg, 57,980 fully electric passenger cars were newly registered in November.
With a market share of 22.2 percent, the previous high from the end of 2021 was exceeded.
There were also 44,581 plug-in hybrids (17.1 percent).
However, experts doubt that the trend will continue.
"A drought is on the horizon for electric cars in Germany," warns Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Duisburg Center Automotive Research.
2025 at the earliest is to be expected with increasing registration numbers.
Germany is losing important time in the mobility transition.
The federal government aims to increase the number of electric cars on German roads from around 900,000 to 15 million by 2030.
koe/ahh