The trickery with the e-car bonus reached a new high in 2022.
Tens of thousands of Stromer were apparently sold abroad at a profit - the financial damage is gigantic.
Germany subsidizes - and some dealers cash in with an extremely questionable scam: the bonus trickery with used electric cars is increasing.
This is the conclusion of a study by the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) in Bergisch Gladbach, which compared the registration and stock numbers of e-cars in Germany.
According to this, 16 percent of the e-cars newly registered last year are no longer on German roads.
In the previous year, the gap was “only” 13 percent.
Dubious business model with an e-car premium: Germany lacks tens of thousands of electric vehicles
In total, around 470,000 purely electric cars were newly registered in Germany in 2022.
However, the vehicle stock of purely electric passenger cars increased by just under 400,000 units in the same period.
The experts suspect that the majority of the missing vehicles were resold abroad after collecting the environmental bonus of up to 9,000 euros.
If the holding period after initial registration is at least six months, that is legal, but not in the interest of the taxpayer.
The CAM estimates the damage caused by the loophole at 380 million euros.
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Apparently, the environmental bonus for e-vehicles was a massive trick.
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© Michael Gstettenbauer/Imago
Dubious business model with e-car bonus: particularly worthwhile for expensive vehicles
According to CAM, the trick is particularly worthwhile for expensive e-cars.
According to random samples by the experts, the differences between new registrations and growth in numbers are particularly high at Tesla, BMW and Audi, among others, where every third to fourth car disappears from Germany.
In the case of cheaper electric vehicles, the gap is smaller; for the small car Renault Zoe, for example, it is around 9 percent.
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Dubious business model with an e-car premium: some dealers specialize in it
Resale abroad is worthwhile despite the loss in value due to the level of funding and the ultimately short minimum holding period.
Some dealers have specialized in reselling used electric vehicles abroad at a profit after six months.
The sellers also benefit in part from subsidy programs in the target countries, which create high demand and high prices for young used electric vehicles.
However, the questionable business model is likely to be less worthwhile in the current year after the minimum holding period rose to one year at the turn of the year.
The fact that the maximum subsidy amount has fallen in Germany and at the same time many high-priced e-mobiles have been completely excluded from the bonus scheme should also make it less attractive.
(Holger Holzer/SP-X)
List of rubrics: © Michael Gstettenbauer/Imago
