The demand for electric cars is higher than ever, the car manufacturers are sometimes citing delivery times of well over a year. Because computer chips are still scarce, the industry will probably be able to build significantly fewer cars for many months to come than it could sell. And now there is another annoyance for potential new electric car drivers: According to information from the German Press Agency from government circles, the federal government is said to have agreed on a drastic reduction in the purchase premiums. And that means: Anyone who gets their car delivered later receives less funding or even gets nothing at all.
According to this, the subsidy for electric cars with a net list price of less than 40,000 euros will only be 4,500 euros from 2023, up from 6,000 euros 000 euros there is still no funding. As early as next year, the premium threshold could be lowered again, then all cars over 45,000 euros would no longer receive a government subsidy, and cheaper vehicles should only be subsidized with 3,000 euros.
According to the agreement reached by the traffic light coalition, buyers of partially electric cars, the so-called plug-in hybrids, will have to do without state support completely from 2023. The Greens in particular had long been pushing for the subsidies for these vehicles to be abolished, as there is no check as to whether the drivers are moving them electrically at all. So far, plug-in buyers can claim a purchase premium of up to 4,500 euros from the federal government. However, nothing should change in the company car taxation for the time being. There, in addition to drivers of pure electric cars, hybrid drivers should continue to have tax advantages. It is also still unclear how the manufacturer’s share of the purchase premium will continue. Depending on the vehicle, this was previously a maximum of 3000 euros.
But the government’s agreement has another catch: the funding should no longer continue until a certain date, but only until a total of 2.5 billion euros have been used up. If this pot is empty, car buyers will get nothing. Because so far it seems that the payment of the bonus is still linked to the registration date of the vehicle. So if you order an electric car now, you can only apply for the state subsidy once you have registered the car. With waiting times of more than a year, it is therefore possible that you will receive a lower bonus or no bonus at all – because the funding pot will be empty by then.
“The risk is very high that the trend towards electric cars in Germany will break off,” says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the Center Automotive Research in Duisburg, commenting on the new funding rules. Not only because buyers lack planning security, but also because the car expert predicts that electric cars will have “significant price disadvantages” compared to combustion engines in the next three to five years due to high raw material prices and bottlenecks in battery cell production. His conclusion: “The traffic light slows down the electric car.”
The ADAC auto club is relieved that the e-car promotion is being continued. However, according to ADAC Transport President Gerhard Hillebrand, it is “unacceptable” if buyers receive less money due to delivery problems. “All in all, it would be sensible to approve the funding in the future when the purchase contract is concluded and not only when the vehicle is registered.”
A total of 4.6 billion euros in purchase bonuses were paid out by 2022. In the first half of 2022 alone, around 271,000 new applications for funding were received by the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA). There are currently around 735,000 electric cars on Germany’s roads. Despite the bonus, this is still a long way from the 15 million target that the government wants to achieve by 2030.