Government commission
E-mobility has to gain momentum significantly
Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer at the ITS World Congress for Mobility and Logistics in Hambureg. Photo: Markus Scholz / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
How do you get from A to B in the future – and in a climate-friendly way? Continue in your private car or, increasingly, by bus and train? Experts have now submitted proposals.
From the point of view of a government commission, the electrification of road traffic must gain momentum significantly in the coming years.
“Despite considerable technical advances, the transport sector has not been able to reduce CO2 emissions in recent years,” says the final report of the National Platform for the Future of Mobility (NPM), which was presented on Wednesday. The volume of traffic is growing particularly in freight traffic. At the same time, climate targets would be tightened.
According to the expert panel, up to 14 million electric vehicles will have to be on the road in Germany by 2030 in order to make a sufficient contribution to the implementation of the tightened climate targets in transport in June. The previous planning horizon for the automotive industry would have been seven to ten million e-cars in 2030. Against the background of the tightening of the fleet limits prepared by the EU Commission and announcements by the manufacturers, however, a significantly higher inventory is “assumed to be realistic and may be necessary to achieve the climate targets”.
However, the German car fleet is still a long way from achieving the desired dimensions, even if the proportion of e-cars among new registrations is increasing. The automotive industry association VDA reiterated its warning that a nationwide charging infrastructure is necessary for the ramp-up of electromobility, “which gives people the confidence that they can charge anywhere”.
The platform expressly refrains from concentrating one-sidedly on e-mobility when converting car traffic. The committee recommends plug-in hybrids with electric drives and combustion engines as “pioneers” that could introduce customers to electric mobility.
The NPM was commissioned by the federal government three years ago to submit proposals for climate neutrality in traffic and for maintaining a competitive auto industry. Participants in the commission, which consists of 240 experts, criticized the fact that the conclusions were too heavy-handed. The final report also recommends that public transport by road and rail should become more attractive and flexible. Several associations, including the BUND and the German Association of Cities, criticized “the lack of will to noticeably reduce car traffic” and demanded that the next federal government give priority to walking and cycling as well as local and long-distance public transport. The chairwoman of the conference of transport ministers of the federal states, Bremen Senator Maike Schaefer (Greens), who was also involved in the platform, emphasized that the mobility transition needed more alternatives to car ownership.
Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer rejected the criticism. Road traffic accounted for 95 percent of traffic-related CO2 emissions. “That is exactly our topic, where do I get the fastest measure when it comes to achieving the climate targets, and that is simply the subject of the road, and the car is one of them.” VDA boss Hildegard Müller emphasized that cars are indispensable for many people, especially in rural areas. They are ready to use different modes of transport, but they do not always find suitable offers. “There is still a lot of catching up to do here.”
Scheuer appealed to the auto industry to manufacture more parts in Germany. It would be the wrong message to the motorists to offer bonuses for the purchase of e-vehicles, “the end consumers then have to wait nine months for the product because various parts are not available”. In the industry there are always production stops because, for example, semiconductors are missing. Important suppliers are located in Asia. The CSU politician said: “I hope that not only the global view of a manufacturer is the decisive factor, but also that which components absolutely have to remain in Germany in order to maintain the supply chains in Germany”.
NPM boss Henning Kagermann was optimistic that the climate-neutral conversion of traffic would create more jobs than it would destroy. The greatest challenge, however, is the qualification. “The difficulty is getting there because there are different jobs” and significantly more experts for digitization and services would be needed. “The question is: Will I get today’s employment team over to the new world?” For employment, too, it is important to be able to manufacture as many of the parts required for e-mobility as possible competitively in Germany.