The government has stepped up measures too, after disappointing sales forced Chancellor Angela Merkel to backtrack from an earlier target of putting one million electric vehicles on German roads by 2020. Since 2016, buyers of electric cars get a 4,000-euro rebate, while owners of plug-ins hybrids get a 3,000-euro subsidy. There’s also a 300 million-euro budget to boost the build-out of charging infrastructure. Merkel, zeroing in on forming a government after last year's election, is planning even more measures, including tax incentives.
So the market is responding. Sales of plug-in hybrid and electric cars are set to jump 64 percent this year to 82,000 vehicles, BNEF forecasts, making Germany the fastest-growing region among the top five markets. BNEF says that forecast may be conservative, and deliveries could easily double again this year.
Tesla Inc. is growing even more quickly in Germany than electric-car sales generally. Registrations gained 75 percent last year to 3,332 vehicles. That’s approaching the 3,900 sales of the Porsche Panamera four-door, a close competitor to Tesla’s Model S.
Even after big gains, battery vehicles remain a tiny fraction of last year’s German sales of more than 3.4 million new cars. But new models rapidly rolling out across showrooms nationwide could end electrics’ bit-player status soon. Electric vehicles hitting showrooms this year include Jaguar’s I-Pace crossover sport utility vehicle, as well as Audi’s Q6 e-tron SUV. BMW is unveiling a battery-powered Mini next year, alongside Mercedes-Benz’s SUV as part of its EQ brand. Diesel-stained Volkswagen will launch the fully-electric I.D. Crozz compact crossover and the I.D. Neo hatchback in 2020.
For now, plenty of—sometimes petty—struggles remain. Parking offenders, safe in the knowledge of lax enforcement, block inner-city charging spots, Hoeffner says. And Germany has work to do, too, to improve patchy coverage. Saxony-Anhalt, one of the states of former East Germany, counts just 55 stations, compared to some 870 in Bavaria, according to the Federal Grid Agency.
For the foreseeable future, perhaps the biggest drag on electric car sales is, actually, drag. Because the driving range plunges as speed increases, electric cars will struggle to keep the pace for long with a 911 on the famed autobahn, where some-two thirds of the roads have no speed limits.
“It’s well known that at higher discharging rates, the performance of the battery decreases,” BNEF analyst James Frith said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.