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German government expands subsidies for electric cars

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Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#31

Post by thinkcontext »

cbmuser wrote: post #23
gibolt wrote: post #15

It is pretty blatant that they are increasing it by 50% to support Volkswagen's conversion to electric. Most of the other comments seem quite negative. It is protectionism, but it applies to most electric cars and is a step in the right direction. It is late and selfish, but better than the alternative.

Volkswagen isn't going to convert to electric anytime soon. Electric cars only make 1% of the annual car registrations in Germany and 0.18% of the total number of cars registered. In fact, Volkswagen is planning a new factory for cars with combustion engines in Turkey. It's just currently put on hold due to the conflict at the Syrian border.

Certainly ICE cars will make up most of their business for a while but they have converted a factory from ICE to EV [0] and are planning to invest 50B EUR in the effort [1].

[0] https://electrek.co/2019/11/04/vw-id3-production-electric-ca...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-strategy/vw-em...

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#32

Post by k__ »

dillz wrote: post #22

Blatant and obvious lobbying by the extremely powerful German car industry. The subsidy includes premium brand plug-in hybrids such as BMW 330e and Mercedes C class - i.e. typical company cars that will very rarely use the electric engine. As gibolt mentioned, it also helps VW selling their new models. Why not subsidize public transport instead? Why has the German government been unable to make (useful) climate prote…

True. On the other hand, at least VW is partly owned by the state.

Also, I think it's good to get into renewables for the climate and to cut the monarchs and autocrats off from their money in the long run.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#33

Post by cf141q5325 »

splitbrain wrote: post #6
dna_polymerase wrote: post #2

> The German government and car industry have agreed to increase joint subsidies for the purchase of electric cars on the same day automobile giant Volkswagen began production of a new all-electric vehicle. The way that company fucks Germany over and over is truly remarkable. Paid no penalties for the whole Dieselgate in Germany, now after all that they let the taxpayer fund their infrastructure. I bet their solution…

Or as someone else put it: "If you want to understand German politics, you have to know that the German government is the political arm of the German car industry"

And here a reminder to the "Abwrackprämine" the scrappage program from 2009 to help the automotive industry through the last financial crisis. Different to the programs in other countries, the German scrappage program coincidentally didnt require the new car to meet any modern emission standards.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#34

Post by close04 »

thinkcontext wrote: post #29
fluffything wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only VW, any company can opt-in to the subsidies: the state pays half and the company the other half. What's funny is how the requirement of a <= 60k EUR car price means that those buying a Tesla won't get any subsidies. It's kind of understandable though: in Germany most cars are sold in the 10-20k EUR range, so it would be political suicide to create a subsidy to pay for what most citizens consider a luxury. Su…

Tesla Model 3 has a base price of 44.5K EUR. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/13/tesla-model-3-vs-bmw-3-...

Why link to some 3rd party site when you can link to the source of truth, the Tesla site [0] (currently at 44.390€)?

https://www.tesla.com/de_DE/model3/design

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#35

Post by Vysero »

I would love to be able to buy an electric car here in Montana (US) but how would I charge it? Either way I couldn't afford it. Even at a conservative estimate of 20k that's still too much considering I can go out and buy a used car that gets 20mpg for 5k and keep it for the next 100k miles.

I realize this is a bit off topic but I get so bitter when I heard about other countries converting to electric. I just wish someone would make and sell a reliable electric car in the states for around 10-15k and provide me with enough utility stations to make it practical to use.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#36

Post by gibolt »

fluffything wrote: post #25
gibolt wrote: post #15

It is pretty blatant that they are increasing it by 50% to support Volkswagen's conversion to electric. Most of the other comments seem quite negative. It is protectionism, but it applies to most electric cars and is a step in the right direction. It is late and selfish, but better than the alternative.

Not only VW, any company can opt-in to the subsidies: the state pays half and the company the other half. What's funny is how the requirement of a <= 60k EUR car price means that those buying a Tesla won't get any subsidies. It's kind of understandable though: in Germany most cars are sold in the 10-20k EUR range, so it would be political suicide to create a subsidy to pay for what most citizens consider a luxury. Su…

Tesla's lower-end Model 3s fall in that range. Tesla will be announcing their European Gigafactory soon (most likely in Germany), so it is in Germany's best interest to make Teslas more attainable as well. It will increase local jerbs and decrease carbon emissions.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#37

Post by windsurfer »

Vysero wrote: post #35

I would love to be able to buy an electric car here in Montana (US) but how would I charge it? Either way I couldn't afford it. Even at a conservative estimate of 20k that's still too much considering I can go out and buy a used car that gets 20mpg for 5k and keep it for the next 100k miles. I realize this is a bit off topic but I get so bitter when I heard about other countries converting to electric. I just wish so…

May I ask why you wouldn't be able to charge it at home? It is my understanding that most people simply charge their electric cars overnight, much like their phones.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#38

Post by dev_dull »

Vysero wrote: post #35

I would love to be able to buy an electric car here in Montana (US) but how would I charge it? Either way I couldn't afford it. Even at a conservative estimate of 20k that's still too much considering I can go out and buy a used car that gets 20mpg for 5k and keep it for the next 100k miles. I realize this is a bit off topic but I get so bitter when I heard about other countries converting to electric. I just wish so…

I paid $11k for my used 2015 leaf about 2 years ago. I charge it every other day (90 mile range) by plugging it in at work or at home into a DC charger that’s connected to my dryer outlet.

For these cars they work great but you have to accept that they usually have to be charged every other day.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#39

Post by lm28469 »

mooktakim wrote: post #26
sparkling wrote: post #21

I doubt this is going to do anything. About 50% of the population in Germany are renters, not owners. And for the other 50% owners, many just own a unit in a multi family building, not the whole property. For manyyyyy of these people there simply is no option to conveniently fast charge their electric vehicle at home. No renter will want to invest in a pricey wallbox at a property that they don't own - even if the la…

Solution to these problems will come. Its a chicken & egg problem. I live in a flat in London and thinking of similar issues with electric cars. Maybe 20min supercharging every couple of weeks is enough for my weekend driving. I'm hoping soon every lamp post will have a charging plug.

> I'm hoping soon every lamp post will have a charging plug.

I don't see any major city doing that anytime soon. The grid is not ready, power plants are not ready, it would cost billions to rewire everything, especially in old European towns. And even more for germany since they're shutting down coal and nuclear right now. It's not a big issue though, we should focus on getting rid of personal cars and that's something Berlin is getting slightly better at by the day.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#40

Post by MauranKilom »

cbmuser wrote: post #23
gibolt wrote: post #15

It is pretty blatant that they are increasing it by 50% to support Volkswagen's conversion to electric. Most of the other comments seem quite negative. It is protectionism, but it applies to most electric cars and is a step in the right direction. It is late and selfish, but better than the alternative.

Volkswagen isn't going to convert to electric anytime soon. Electric cars only make 1% of the annual car registrations in Germany and 0.18% of the total number of cars registered. In fact, Volkswagen is planning a new factory for cars with combustion engines in Turkey. It's just currently put on hold due to the conflict at the Syrian border.

But they also announced that they will not work on a new generation of combustion engines anymore:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-comb...

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