Plug-in electric vehicles in Germany
[19][20] In June 2020, and as a result of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government approved a recovery plan which included €8 billion to promote electric vehicle adoption and deployment of charging infrastructure.
[7][8] The segment market share rose to 3.10% in 2019,[9] and despite the global strong decline in car sales brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the uptake rate achieved a record 13.6% in 2020.
[12] As of April 2016[update], electric vehicles and plug-ins in Germany are exempt from the annual circulation tax for a period of five years from the date of their first registration.
[17] The private use of a company car is treated as taxable income in Germany and measured at a flat monthly rate of 1% of the vehicle's gross list price.
In June 2013 German legislators approved a law that ends the tax disadvantage for corporate plug-in electric cars.
The law, backdated to 1 January 2013, allows private users to offset the list price with €500 per unit of battery size, expressed in kilowatt hours (kWh).
[33] As part of the package of financial incentives approved in 2016, private owners of plug-in electric vehicles that charge their cars in their employer premises are exempted from declaring this perk as a cash benefit in their income tax return.
The proposed user benefits include measures to privilege battery-powered cars, fuel cell vehicles and some plug-in hybrids, just like Norway does, by granting local governments the authority to allow these vehicles into bus lanes, and to offer free parking and reserved parking spaces in locations with charging points.
[38] The Bundestag passed the Electric Mobility Act in March 2015 authorizing local government to grant these non-monetary incentives, which are not mandatory.
The law also provides issuing special license plates for electric vehicles to allow proper identification to avoid abuses of these privileges.
As a result, Chancellor Angela Merkel recognized in December 2014 that the government has to provide more incentives to meet the goal of having one million electric cars on the country's roads by 2020.
[17] As of September 2016[update], BMW, Citroën, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo had signed up to participate in the scheme.
[17][49] In May 2016, Nissan announced the company decided to raise the bonus with an additional €1000 (US$1,130) to €5000 (US$5,650) for customers of its all-electric Leaf car and e-NV200 utility van.
This became the highest economic incentive granted in any European country, but there is a holding period, the vehicle must be registered in Germany for at least six months.
[14][15] According to Der Spiegel, by the early fourth quarter of 2015 the Kia Soul EV ranked as the top selling plug-in electric car in Germany during 2015 with 2,459 units sold, with almost 1,000 registered in October, nevertheless, there were actually only a few of them on German roads.
According to the magazine, Kia Motors is registering the electric cars in Germany and then shipping them to Norway, which does not belong to the European Union, as a strategy to reduce the average CO2 fleet emissions of the entire Hyundai-Kia Group.
[26] By June 2020, The German government is considering to mandate all petrol stations to offer electric car charging as part of its economic recovery plan due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government expects to spend €2.5 billion euros on battery cell production and charging infrastructure as part of the national stimulus package.
Renault joined the RWE Mobility program in September 2009 whereby the project goals of erecting charging stations were enlarged to mid of 2011[59] Renault's partner Nissan has joined the RWE-mobility program in June 2010 announcing that RWE will create a network of 1,000 charging stations until the end of the year 2010 focusing on the Berlin and Rhein-Ruhr region.
[60] In August 2010 a cooperation with fuel retailer PKN Orlen was announced – they planned to equip 30 gas stations in Hamburg with charging points for electric vehicles.
[63] Testing in Berlin began in June 2009, and for the second phase, a total of 70 vehicles were delivered in March 2011 to private customers and fleet users.
[67] Carmaker VW and utility E.ON run a joint electric car and charging station test project in the German capital, Berlin and in Wolfsburg.
April 2011 by DEKRA[77] and EnBW has announced to install 260 charge stations in the following weeks for MeRegioMobil project in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.
[78] In November 2011 the Car2Go carsharing service announced plans to operate in Stuttgart in 2012 – EnBW reassured to have 500 charging spots ready in time with the roll out of the Car2Go vehicles in the second half of 2012.
[7][8] The segment market share rose to 3.10% in 2019,[9] and despite the global strong decline in car sales brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the uptake rate achieved a record 13.6% in 2020.
[88][90] In addition, a total of 2,413 Renault Twizys were sold during 2012, making Germany the top selling European market for the electric quadricycle.
[4] The BMW i3 ended 2014 as the top selling plug-in electric car with 2,233 units registered, followed by the Smart Fortwo ED with 1,589, and the Renault Zoe with 1,498.
[5][100] The top selling models in 2015 were the Kia Soul EV with 3,839 units, followed by the BMW i3 with 2,271, the Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV with 2,128, the Volkswagen Golf GTE with 2,109 and the Audi A3 e-tron with 1,839.
[105] The introduction of the purchase bonus did not produce immediate effect on plug-in car sales until September 2016, when registrations peaked at 3,061 units.
[23] The following table presents registrations of the top selling highway-capable plug-in electric cars available for retail customers by year between 2010 and June 2014.
