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German government expands subsidies for electric cars

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Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#51

Post by arethuza »

k__ wrote: post #32
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.

Looks like VW is actually more owned by Qatar than any part of the German state:

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/InvestorRelations/shares/sha...

Edit: Saxony does get more voting rights than Qatar.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#52

Post by Vysero »

windsurfer wrote: post #37
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.

Perhaps I am in the minority but my home is an apartment complex so I park in the parking lot. There are no chargers in the parking lot.

Either way (I could be wrong) I don't think you can just plug it into a 120V outlet to get a charge.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#53

Post by blattimwind »

wongarsu wrote: post #27
cbmuser wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course a giant company like Volkswagen won't turn around on a dime, it will be a slow transition; and probably never a complete one. But just from the fact that electric cars have a 5 times higher share of new registrations than of existing cars shows that it's a growing market, and adoption curves usually grow exponentially until you approach market saturation. Volkswagen is doing a lot to get a bigger piece of t…

> Of course a giant company like Volkswagen won't turn around on a dime, it will be a slow transition; and probably never a complete one.

Yes, there is a long tail of applications where EVs are not a reasonable proposition. Emergency services (police, medical, fire fighting) come to mind immediately. There is pretty much no way you can built an all-electric fire truck with batteries that isn't much worse than ICE fire trucks today: Battery weight means you can carry less water, which directly reduces operational capability; limited battery charge means the truck's pumps don't last as long, and a battery is much harder to refuel in the field than a tank of diesel. Similar reasons apply to ambulances. Some L.E. vehicles can reasonably be made to work as EVs (patrol cars), others not so much. Whenever you need to maximize off-grid operational time or you continuously need a lot of power, EVs are just not a sane option.

Additionally the small number of these vehicles make their emissions rather irrelevant.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#54

Post by pgeorgi »

freeflight wrote: post #19
pgeorgi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> German politics and any kind of tech innovation I came to believe that German politics still associates "high tech" with the cog wheel: more cog wheels, more tech. Since that doesn't apply to IT, it completely falls by the wayside. And since EVs have less of them than an ICE car, they're also lower tech than regular cars. So far that's the only way I could make sense of it all.

That would also explain the tendency to still bet on "rare metals" aka copper as a transmission medium for the Internet.

I think that has more to do with Projekt Opal by the Bundespost (see https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Glasfaser-in-ihrem-Lauf... from 2001): An early fiber network project that tanked and cut off entire villages from any newer technology than 33.6kbps modems for a decade or so.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#56

Post by JTon »

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…

I cannot confirm this first hand, but I've heard water cooler stories about Tesla software nerfing the range of their model 3s in Canada. This lowers the base price of vehicle enough to be eligible for a federal subsidy. Once the subsidy is claimed, the owner can buy a software upgrade from the dealer to restore the model 3 to full capability. Pretty sly trick.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#57

Post by gibolt »

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…

The German auto industry is 5% of their economy, employing nearly a million people. Imagine the fire (no pun intended) Tesla is setting under them, as the premium (most profitable) sales plummet across the industry.

They decided to subsidize the industry to drive growth and help their big players quickly get to scale where they can make a profit. The alternative is they cease to exist and Germany suffers.

I'm all for public transit, but people there won't stop buying cars. Might as well buy local.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#58

Post by dmix »

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-...

That still seems to be covered:

> For electric cars over €40,000, there will be an increase in the subsidy by 25%. Any car priced over €60,000 will not supported by the scheme.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#59

Post by hannasanarion »

vkou wrote: post #46
windsurfer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My apartment building does not have, and by my best guess, will never have car chargers in its parking garage. And I'm lucky enough to have a parking garage. At least ~70% of the people living in my area park on the street, where there are... Also no chargers.

Have you considered asking them if they would install one? They aren't that expensive, only about $1000 bucks, and I think there are some federal subsidies.

With a service like Chargepoint, there is no cost to the landlord at all. They have a brochure you can print out on their website.

Failing that you can park near a regular 120v outlet and use level 1 charging, which fills up most cars in about 8 hours.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#60

Post by dmix »

Vysero wrote: post #52
windsurfer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps I am in the minority but my home is an apartment complex so I park in the parking lot. There are no chargers in the parking lot. Either way (I could be wrong) I don't think you can just plug it into a 120V outlet to get a charge.

No thats the biggest problem for most buyers living in apartment buildings in urban areas. It's still quite rare to find chargers in underground parking lots.

That's what prevented me from buying one as well. I didn't want to have to go wait in line at one of the few public chargers in my city.

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