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German government expands subsidies for electric cars

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Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#61

Post by _ph_ »

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…

Short term, Tesla gets the largest benefit from this, as they are delivering the Model 3 in numbers already and the Model 3 would qualify (though not for the full amount, as this is only for cars less than 40000€). Behind that though, VW is to gain a lot from it too for certain.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#62

Post by Tepix »

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…

As part of this expansion they are raising the limit from 60k € to 65k €

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#63

Post by richardknop »

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's an expensive car in European standards. 20k is what most people pay for a car here. 45k car is a luxury imho.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#65

Post by Tepix »

radicalbyte wrote: post #30
the-dude wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NL we have this subsidy for the rich.

The people I see driving around in Tesla (or large Audi/Volvo) here aren't really rich, more have a decent job and a willingness to spend a substantial amount of money on a car. I don't understand it personally, I prefer cycling and having my mortgage paid off but everyone to their own :) I guess if you're in your 50s then you paid very little for your house so it makes sense to pay the 1200 EUR a month net for a car…

If you can afford a car for 60k € you are among the top 10% richest persons on the planet.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#66

Post by zozbot234 »

blattimwind wrote: post #53
wongarsu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fir…

> and a battery is much harder to refuel in the field than a tank of diesel.

You can use fuel cells. Harder than a tank of diesel (less energy dense), but not by much.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#68

Post by close04 »

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.

You can but with a standard 120V (12/15A) outlet you'd spend days charging an EV with a large battery. Anything that takes more than 8-10 hours is not really a feasible option. A 240V outlet can be 32A which would be a lot more reasonable in terms of charging time.

Re: German government expands subsidies for electric cars

#69

Post by paganel »

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.

Related to that, it surprised me how spotty the Internet was when I drove from Salzburg all the way to Strasbourg via Karlsruhe a few weeks ago (my gf who was riding shotgun used a more explicit word to describe it). Supposedely those are the best developed regions of Germany (we passed close to Munich and Stuttgart, i.e. the hometowns of BMW and Merecedes). The highway itself (the A8) is in need of further improvements especially the part between Salzburg and Munich.
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