Status: 23.12.2021 10:27 a.m.
The applications for the state purchase bonus for electric cars have reached a new record high. Nevertheless, new cars are currently more expensive than ever. Refueling also costs more than it has for years.
There has been a boom in government subsidies for electric cars this year. The number of applications more than doubled to a record of more than 585,000, according to the news agency’s Federal Office of Economics and Export Control dpa announced. More than three billion euros in funding for electromobility were paid out. That is 4.7 times the amount paid out in 2020. Since the subsidy began in 2016, a total of around one million applications have been made – the majority of them in the past two years.
In the middle of last year, the federal government doubled the purchase premium (the so-called environmental bonus) for pure e-cars and plug-in hybrids via an innovation premium. This led to a strong increase in demand. The number of new registrations of all-electric cars reached a record high of over 300,000 in 2021. In November alone it was more than 40,000, making up a good 20 percent of all new car registrations.
Purchase premium extended – with restrictions
Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) recently announced the extension of the innovation bonus, which is actually limited to the end of the year, until the end of 2022. Buyers of purely electrically powered electric vehicles will continue to receive a government bonus of up to 9,000 euros. Plug-in hybrids that combine an electric drive with a combustion engine cost up to 6750 euros. According to the plans of the Ampel government, a reform of state funding is planned from 2023. Then only electric vehicles that have been shown to have a positive effect on climate protection should be funded. This should be defined via the electric driving portion and a minimum electric range.
Plug-in hybrid vehicles, in particular, have come under massive criticism from environmental and climate associations. It is controversial how much they are really driven in purely electric mode. In addition, there is the combination of the high weight of the batteries for the electric drive and the climate-damaging combustion engine. Anyone who does not charge their plug-in hybrid vehicle and instead only transports the electric motor as ballast will ultimately not produce fewer, but more emissions.
From January 2022 onwards, these cars, whose maximum CO2 emissions per kilometer driven exceeds 50 grams and which have a purely electric range of less than 60 kilometers, are no longer eligible for funding, according to the Federal Office. So far, the limit value has been an electric range of 40 kilometers.
Only low discounts
Even if the state innovation bonus cushions prices somewhat, new cars on the German car market are currently more expensive than ever, as a study presented today by the Duisburg Center Automotive Research (CAR) shows. According to the head of the study, Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the trends of scarce supply and lower discounts will continue in the first few months of the new year. The reason for this is, in particular, supply problems with semiconductor components.
According to the study, almost all indicators pointed to rising consumer prices for new cars in December as well. Specifically, the discounts offered on the Internet for the 30 most popular, freely configurable new vehicles have been reduced to an average of 16.7 percent of the list price. The highest discounts of just under 25 percent were on various models from Ford and Renault as well as on the Fiat 500.
In addition, manufacturers and dealers allowed fewer vehicles for their own account in order to later bring them to the market as special offers. The share of self-registrations fell again in November by 1.4 points to 22.5 percent, as CAR reported. The manufacturers are apparently increasingly relying on subscription models, which have become a bit cheaper on average. The number of offers rose by 14 to 314. Customers of this relatively new form of leasing, including maintenance and insurance benefits, had to wait between eight (pure electric drives) and almost 16 weeks (plug-in hybrids) for their cars.
Big price differences at the gas stations
Refueling also cost more this year than it has been in a long time. According to the ADAC, it was the most expensive tank year since 2013. By the end of November, the average price for premium E10 petrol in the current year was 1.514 euros per liter on the national average. For diesel it was 1.373 euros. For the year as a whole, ADAC fuel market expert Jürgen Albrecht expects slightly higher final scores, because diesel and E10 were even more expensive in December. Roughly speaking, it comes to an increase of 26 to 27 cents in the case of the E10 compared to the previous year, in the case of diesel it should be around 27 cents.
November was even the most expensive month for refueling ever. The most expensive days for diesel fell on November 11th with an all-time high of 1.572 euros per liter. E10 cost 1.701 on November 14, just barely past the 2012 record of 1.709. The cheapest fueling day was January 1, at € 1.324 for E10 and € 1.215 for diesel. “With E10 there was almost a 40 cents difference between the most expensive and the cheapest day, which is extraordinary,” said ADAC expert Albrecht.
For many drivers, the rise in fuel prices this year made itself felt in their wallets. If you compare the costs of a typical gasoline car with a mileage of slightly more than 10,500 kilometers per year and eight liters of consumption per 100 kilometers, drivers had to pay over 200 euros more than last year. For a typical diesel car that covers almost 20,000 kilometers a year and consumes six liters, the additional costs are even more than 300 euros. But that’s also because 2020 was unusually cheap.
Where is the oil price headed?
The most important driver for the high fuel costs was the development of the oil price. The decreasing corona restrictions caused increasing demand, but supply remained scarce because large producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia were only cautiously expanding their production. The prices increased significantly in 2021: From 50 dollars per barrel (159 liters) at the beginning of the year to more than 85 dollars at times in November.
From the point of view of the ADAC, it is difficult to predict how things will continue in 2022. Too many factors influenced the oil price as the most important factor in the cost of diesel and gasoline, said Albrecht. “2022 will be exciting,” believes the expert. The commodity experts at Commerzbank expect some relaxation: Prices could tend to decline, but remain at a higher level than before Corona, it is said.