Clean Energy Wire — 2023-06-29
Automotive Industry
German Transport Minister Volker Wissing has announced new state support programmes to speed up the lagging development of sufficient charging infrastructure for electric cars and trucks. “We will soon be launching two further funding offers to support private households in the construction of charging stations with their own power supply, and companies in the installation of fast-charging infrastructure,” said Wissing. One programme is aimed at charging in private residential buildings through the combined support for charging stations, photovoltaic systems and storage. It is to be provided with funding of up to €500m and will start in autumn 2023. An additional €400m are being used to support the buildup of fast-charging infrastructure for commercially used cars and trucks. The state agency supporting the charging infrastructure build-up – the Nationale Leitstelle Ladeinfrastruktur – estimates that around 60% to 85% of all charging takes place at home or at work, reports public broadcaster ARD. The ministry expects a high five-digit number of applications from private households, and will announce the amount of possible individual funding at a later date, writes ARD.
In a bid to reduce its stubbornly high transport sector emissions, the government aims to have 15m fully electric passenger cars on Germany's roads by 2030. Because a lack of charging points is often considered an obstacle to this tartget, the government announced a ‘Charging Infrastructure Masterplan’ in late 2022 that is meant to lay the groundwork for reaching one million charging points by the end of the decade. However, Germany's energy and car industry are at odds whether the target of one million charging points for electric cars in the country by 2030 is actually needed. Energy industry lobby group BDEW argues that vehicles’ charging capacities have tripled since 2019, meaning that more vehicles can charge at a charging point per day, and less charging points are necessary.