German GroKo confirms electric transport policies

Germany’s grand coalition of CDU and SPD has confirmed the set of measures for electric mobility it had drafted a few days ago. Policies include tax reliefs as well as charging infrastructure and the electrification of fleets.

In essence, the so-called GroKo (short for Große Koalition, grande coalition) of Germany’s Christian and Social Democrats, has confirmed the policies it had outlayed in the coalition treaty draft last Sunday.

CDU and SPD 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.
The life of homeowners and those renting a place shall be made easier with new laws favouring the installation of private charging facilities. Laws shall also govern billing systems with the actual users in mind.

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. Commercial use appears to receive special attention overall. The federal government also wants to enable municipalities to introduce their own emission regulation when it comes to commercial vehicles and transport.

Overall, existing programmes to foster electric transport are to be put on a more permanent basis. 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.

Merkel’s existing National Platform for Electric Mobility indeed be rebranded as Future of Mobility. It is to deal with the “development” of the car industry and also includes hydrogen applications.

Additionally, the GroKo wants to foster battery cell production in Germany and Europe to support the entire value chain of electric mobility. 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).

handelsblatt.com (Coalition treaty as pdf; in German)