German Government Plans To Use All Electric Vehicles By 2030

The first thing that comes to an engineer’s mind when thinking about Germany is the huge automobile industry. Surely, the Germans have been the pioneers in many technologies concerned with cars. On Monday, Germany took another giant forward stride in this field by unveiling the government’s ambitious but achievable plan of replacing all the gasoline driven cars by electric vehicles by the end of 2030. The idea sounds great and has earned accolades from all the corners of the world. However, at present, there is hardly anyone using electric cars in the country. To make the fact clearer, consider the statistic that in a nation with 40 million cars, only 3000 to 4000 cars are running on electricity. This fraction seems to be negligible and proves to be a stumbling block in the project.

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Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that German carmakers are having a stronghold in the luxury car market because of their superior technology and competitive prices. She now wants that the same dominance should be achieved in the electric vehicle segment so that they can be the market leaders. For this, the Chancellor is ready to make a few tax cuts and subsidy discounts for companies that plan to develop this green and ecologically safe mode of transport. The government expects the number of electric cars to increase to around 1 million till 2020 and up to a whopping 6million till 2030. As an incentive to the car manufacturers, Berlin has made a decision to double its funds to this industry. The industry will get a massive boost from the double subsidy and the reduction in taxes. The German government will spend around € 2 billion for research and development of EVs with more efficient batteries, better technology and competitive costs.

For upping the sales of these cars, many novel marketing strategies will be adopted. There won’t be any discounts on the price tags of these cars. But all cars that will have a carbon emission rate less than 50 gm per kilometer will be exempted from road taxes for a period of 10 years. This seems to be a very beneficial scheme and will attract the drivers and consumers. There will be other advantages to the electric car users like permit to use bus lanes, free parking and electric charging points at few locations in the town, etc. A few tax policies will also be reformed to reduce the price tag of the cars.

While announcing these plans, the government stressed on the fact that all these benefits will be available to the companies provided that the complete production and assembling of the spare parts and accessories of these cars takes place indigenously in Germany. This condition is necessary to prevent carmakers from outsourcing the job to countries like China where manufacturing and assembling costs are pretty low. The government policy will ensure that the German economy progresses and the unemployment problems in the nation get reduced.

This new development has spurred the industrial giants like BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, etc. to develop their indigenous electric cars as soon as possible. All the above three brands are planning to make their EVs ready for sale up to 20113. Germany's Automobile Federation (VDA) told the press that during this year’s Frankfurt international car show slated from September 15 to 25 will be having the theme centered on the electric cars. Let’s hope that Germany can complete this project in time and set an example for the rest of the world.

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