The federal government is accelerating the planned earlier end to the state purchase bonuses for electric cars and is ending the environmental bonus at the end of Sunday. As of December 17, 2023, no new applications for the environmental bonus can be submitted to the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection announced.
Funding that has already been promised is therefore not affected by the end of the funding and will be paid out. Applications received by Bafa up to and including December 17, 2023 will be processed in the order in which they are received.
The change results from the Constitutional Court ruling on the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF). The environmental bonus was originally supposed to apply until the end of 2024 and be capped from January. Since 2016, around ten billion euros have been paid out as part of the environmental bonus for around 2.1 million electric vehicles, the ministry said. The funding program is very successful and has significantly advanced electromobility.
On Wednesday, after long negotiations, the leaders of the traffic light agreed on how billions in holes in the federal budget for 2024 and in the climate and transformation fund should be plugged following a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court. Measures such as increasing the CO₂ price and the planned removal of tax breaks for agricultural diesel are met with protest.