As Volkswagen's ID 3 production EVs begin to roll off the assembly line, Germany is looking to grease the skids for electric-car hopefuls with increased subsidies for electrified vehicle buyers over the next 5-10 years.
The German government has committed to a 50 percent increase in electric vehicle subsidies from 2020 to 2025. That includes increasing the subsidies for plug-in hybrids from 3,000 to 4,500 euros. For vehicles costing 40,000 euros or more, the subsidy will increase to 5,000 euros.
Germany's goal is to put 10 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Speaking at the facility where Volkswagen has started building its ID 3 EV, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed for a $3.5 billion investment in her country's charging infrastructure, saying that the country would need as many as 1 million stations in order to support its EV proliferation targets.
As a result, European automakers find themselves under the gun thanks to aggressive anti-carbon regulation, and according to the wire service, some even expressed concerns during the Frankfurt auto show that their regulations were getting ahead of customer demand.
Despite griping from automakers, the push toward zero-emission vehicles has been taking hold worldwide. American lawmakers have been mulling an increase in federal EV tax credits as higher-volume builders Tesla and General Motors can no longer lean on maximum subsidies to help move their EVs.
The new plan being floated in Congress calls for an increase in the existing cap of 200,000 eligible sales per manufacturer to 600,000, with a maximum credit of $7,000 (down from the current $7,500) for sales beyond the initial 200,000 units. It would also revive the federal fuel-cell tax incentives that expired in 2017.
