German government in the making agrees e-mobility measures

Germany’s leading parties CDU and SPD continue their struggle to form a coalition government. Some progress has been made though on questions of electric transport, according to documents electrive.net has had access to. 

The negotiations to form a government for Germany have been arduous for SPD and CDU. First, the social democrats and conservatives have been struggling to agree to govern together at all and now on what terms such government, a grande coalition (Groko), may move forward.

Preliminary results our German mother side electrive.net as well as dpa have had access to, now show some progress in electric transport. The draft treaty includes the installation charging stations, provisions for electric taxis and personal vehicles, as well as tax measures including a different depreciation rate.

En detail, the reluctant partners earmarked 100 million euros annually for the installation of private charging stations and want to make at least 100,000 additional EV charging points available by 2020. One third shall be capable of fast-charging.

Electric vehicles and light utility vehicles may receive a higher funding through the existing incentive (Umweltbonus). The same will apply to buses and other commercial vehicles.

Furthermore, the parties want to cut taxes on electric and hybrid vehicles in company car fleets with a new tax rate at 0.5 percent. At the same time, the government is to electrify its own fleet.

The tax benefits that make diesel cheaper than any other form of fuel however, remain untouched by the GroKo. Only the Green party may have had the will to change them but refused to form a government. As things stand, there will not be a blue sticker to designate polluting vehicles and to precede potential diesel bans either.

Instead, there will be more talk on a renamed platform. Merkel’s existing National Platform for Electric Mobility will then be labelled future of mobility. It is to deal with the “development” of the car industry. So expect nothing more than minimal advances.

More interestingly, the GroKo wants to foster battery cell production in Germany and Europe. News that will likely delight Terra E and other partners. Their Fab4Lib project for large scale cell production has just launched funded with 12m euros from the government (we reported).

electrive.net (in German), cleanenergywire.org (factsheet coalition draft treaty)