Frankfurt Motor Show is coming up and with Chancellor Angela Merkel commenting that her government is examining further support to help bring one million electric cars onto German roads by the end of the decade and aims to make a decision by the end of the year, we are quite show that the Frankfurt Motor show this year will be electric car friendly……..which is not a bad thing but a rather boring prospect for gearheads looking for more power and noise and less mundane driving vehicles.
Germany has so far refused to provide generous sales incentives for EVs and the government’s measures taken to date include tax breaks for owners of emission-free cars and about 1.5 billion euros ($1.69 billion) of funds for related research projects.
European countries such as Norway and the Netherlands have created incentives to spur customer demand for EVs which in Germany continues to suffer from high costs, poor recharging infrastructure and falling oil prices.
Once promoted as a technology that would crowd out conventionally-powered cars, sales of EVs continue to fall short of expectations. A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Monday showed drivers need financial incentives to help pay the extra costs of buying EVs, whose sales in Germany were about 19,000 last year.