According to the coalition agreement, the traffic light regime wants to completely abolish the subsidy for electric cars from 2025. Currently, buyers of electric cars receive an environmental bonus of up to 9,000 euros. However, according to the coalition agreement, the subsidy for an electric car will only amount to 4000 euros from 2023 and 3000 euros from 2024. Now, however, Transport Minister Wissing wants to increase the bonus even further, to 10800 euros. Wissing also wants to continue subsidising plug-in hybrids, which according to the coalition decision are no longer to receive subsidies. The plan could cost the taxpayer a good 70 billion euros.
Transport Minister Wissing wants to almost double subsidies for an electric car
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing wants to encourage German car buyers to buy electric cars by significantly increasing the state subsidy l. The FDP politician plans to extend the purchase premium for purely electrically powered vehicles until 2027. At the same time, he also wants to massively increase the subsidy. For a maximum purchase price of 40,000 euros, the buyer will receive 10,800 euros instead of the current 6000 euros. This means that the taxpayer will finance electric cars with more than 25 percent of the purchase price. Wissing even wants to include more expensive electric vehicles in the subsidy. For example, Wissing wants to increase the premium for vehicles with a purchase price of up to 60,000 euros from 5,000 to 8,400 euros. In addition, Wissing wants to make it compulsory for owners of vehicles more than eleven years old to scrap their cars. In return, he wants to grant them a scrapping premium of 1500 euros. These figures come from a government report prepared by several research institutes for the Ministry of Transport.
Wissing’s plans violate the coalition agreement
However, Wissing’s proposal has already caused trouble within the coalition. After all, it was agreed in the coalition agreement that all purchase subsidies would expire in 2025. However, since the Ministry of Transport missed its climate targets in the transport sector by three million tonnes of C02 last year, the department must save another six million tonnes. In addition, small electric vehicles in particular are difficult to sell without the government subsidy. Removing the subsidies thus burdens both the manufacturers and the registration statistics. Obviously, Wissing fears a massive drop in the number of registrations of electric vehicles if the subsidy is completely removed.
Wissing rows back again only a few days after the proposals became known
After fierce opposition, both from his own ranks and from the ranks of the coalition parties, Wissing has already denied his plan again. Even environmental organisations such as the Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid), BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany) and Greenpeace described Wissing’s plans as absurd, since the associated savings potential is very small in relation to the costs.
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