Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) has asked Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) to make more money available to support private charging stations for electric cars. Due to the unbroken high demand, the funds of a funding program in the amount of 500 million euros only lasted until July 1, 2021, wrote Scheuer in a letter to Scholz.
Source: Energy and Climate Fund
Scheuer asked the finance minister to top up the program by a further 200 million euros from existing resources from the energy and climate fund. “A stop at this point in time would be a bad signal in the middle of the phase of the ramp-up of electromobility in Germany,” argues the incumbent Federal Transport Minister.
The program is a huge incentive for accelerated electric vehicle purchases, the letter said. The charging of electric vehicles in private parking spaces is of central importance for the development of a high-performance and reliable charging infrastructure network. With the program, the federal government is promoting the installation of wallboxes.
Approval from the VDA
Hildegard Müller, President of the Association of the Automotive Industry, spoke out in favor of the federal government continuing the program to promote the private charging infrastructure. “We therefore expressly welcome the proposal by Federal Minister Scheuer. Germany is already falling behind in expanding the charging infrastructure.” Scholz recently criticized that too. “The finance minister should now act quickly so that consumers have planning security.”
The left-wing traffic politician Jörg Cezanne takes a critical view of this: “With the promotion of publicly accessible charging stations, electromobility would be better served than with e-fuel pumps in the front yard can afford an expensive electric car. ” In terms of total costs, electric cars are currently usually below comparable combustion engines, as our series “Fuel vs. Electricity” has shown.
Alternative drives with an increasing share
Meanwhile, the proportion of vehicles with alternative drives continues to rise sharply. In the first five months of this year, a total of 1,116,737 cars were registered for the first time in Germany. 428,381 of these did not have a single gasoline or diesel internal combustion engine installed. According to KBA, these included:
- Plug-in-Hybride: 132.257
- Battery electric cars: 115,296
- Benzin-Hybrid: 109.750
- Diesel-Hybrid: 65.825
- Gas (CNG and LPG): 5068
- H2 fuel cell: 183
In the first five months of last year, 990,350 vehicles were registered for the first time. This included 36,188 battery-electric cars and 38,792 plug-in hybrids.
(mfz)
