Germany removes subsidies for electric cars effective immediately

15 million EVs

Germany aims to have about 15 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. However, experts are pessimistic about achieving this goal, especially after the recent decision by the German government. Indeed, the Ministry of Economy announced Saturday that subsidy applications for electric cars will no longer be picked up.

Corona credits

The EV subsidy was scrapped because of a budget crisis in the country. Much of the subsidy was supposed to be financed by unused corona credits, but in November the Constitutional Court drew a line under this. In Germany, some 10 billion euros in subsidies have been made available for about 2.1 million electric cars since 2016.

Emergency bell

‘Handelsblatt’ newspaper is sounding the alarm, warning that scrapping the electric car subsidy poses a serious threat to the ambition to have as many as 15 million electric cars on German roads by 2030. “This target was already considered extremely unrealistic and now it seems completely out of reach,” the newspaper said.