Germany has tightened the requirements for the purchase of plug-in hybrids. Now, the focus is on the electric ones, but they do not gain the ground that is intended. The solution proposed by experts can be terrible if it spreads to other markets.
Germany began the new year 2022 with a significant tightening in access to aid for the purchase of plug-in hybrids, with the aim of removing the heaviest and sportiest SUVs from subsidies. The solution of the manufacturers has been to increase the maximum autonomy to the minimum required, 60 kilometersso customers can continue to buy the model of their dreams.
The German government knows that its citizens are changing the chip, and that 41% already consider that it is time to take the next step, abandon combustion and buy electrical. Of course, they demand some fundamental requirements: a range of approximately 600 kilometers, an adequate charging infrastructure, and lower acquisition and maintenance costs. They are even willing to pay moreabout 2,000 Euros, if they guarantee, at least, the number of autonomy.
The obligation to buy electrics that shuffles Germany
The problem is that the Germans continue to help buy new cars, regardless of the type of propulsion they are. Funds of billions of euros that seem to never end, but they are running out and, each time, it costs more to replace. With those aids, few are those who opt for a model with a ZERO label of emissions, preferring to bet once again on combustion, which extends the objective that the electric ones are the majority in sales and registrations.
Since it is an almost impossible mission in the short term to transform the entire mobile fleet into electric, a German expert has presented a strategy that your market can be loaded; and what is worse, the European if the measure is transferred to other countries. Everything bad that you are thinking is just what an eminence like Professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer has pointed out to a German newspaper: increase VAT on gasoline and diesel cars from the current 19% to 26%.
also proposes eliminate, at the same time, aid for the purchase of electric cars. So, what is the strategy? Raising the tax to this level would discourage the sale of combustion cars, assuming some 2,500 Euros for the government coffers, which becomes an incentive for the purchase of zero emissions. Much less than the 9,000 Euros that are offered now, but that can be increased with what emissions taxes contribute. A very risky way of “re-educating” customers and citizens.
In this way, not only would the burden suffered by the State for these aids be released, but it is “forced” to switch to the electric car. Consequences? That they can load the market, and watch out, because the German government have promised a restructuring of aid by the end of the yearso Dudenhöffer’s thesis will be on the debate table.