Germany’s new discount scheme to encourage the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles has been used by almost 2,000 people since its introduction on 1 July 2016, the BAFA economic affairs and export control agency said.
Since its introduction, 1,791 buyers of electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles have applied for the discounts and 581 of them were buyers of BMW models – notably its BMW i3 electric car.
There were also 444 applications for subsidies from buyers of Renault EVs and 154 from buyers of Volkswagen models.
Germany, one of the world’s largest automobile markets, is one of those countries that has set an ambitious EV goal, but is still far from achieving it. Plug-in sales in Germany have been pretty slow over the past years, and only 50,000 of the total of 45 million cars on its roads today are all-electric or plug-in hybrid. Germany previously announced a goal of 1 million electric cars driving German roads by 2020.
Now, in a bid to make electric cars more appealing to consumers and to encourage as many drivers as possible switch to green vehicles, Germany introduced a new, more comprehensive incentive program.
The scheme is similar to those established in other European countries to spur electric car sales. German applicants receive a €4,000 discount off electric car sales, while buyers of plug-in hybrid vehicles a discount of €3,000.
The government and car makers will share the cost of the €1.2 billion rebates, which are only available on cars costing less than 60,000 euros. The incentives are due to expire at the end of 2019.
