Featured Germany will offer 4,000 euro incentives for plug-in vehicles

i hope it passes. somethings gotta give in that country. all the great work they do on renewables, but diesel rules the day so far.

 

Or rue the day!

My understanding is they are also proposing 3,000 euro for hybrids. Perhaps "Prius on order" @pakitt has more insights?

Bob Wilson

 

...that would be nice

 

Well, much of their renewable work is on diesel fuel.

 

You get 4000€ if you buy an EV and 3000€ if you buy a P-HEV. The car must be less than 60.000€ in price (and rightly so) and half of the incentive must come from the car vendor. The other half comes from the German state.
So no extra savings for me. Also because so far officially only 3 German car manufacturers have supported this, and Renault has mentioned to be interested in it (they have at least 4-5 vehicles in their line up which are only electric). Tesla is likely excluded because too expensive and the Model 3 is too far out. The incentive program runs until 2019, if the funds do not finish before that.

According to this, the Mirai also doesn't get any incentive. Not that it helps, since you can only lease it for about 1300€/month. And you cannot really fuel it up anywhere.
In the same way, you cannot really charge an EV vehicle in Germany, unless you can do it in your apartment's garage (assuming there is a plug and the electricity you take goes into your bill - no apartment block management would allow you to happily charge your car from a common plug ) or you are lucky enough to have a home with a garage with a plug. This is also why I never considered a plug-in. Not to mention the totally uneconomical price of the Prius plug-in here in EU. And most companies do not offer charging stations for their employees.

I think this is a "nice" idea, but with little consequence. If they introduced incentives for hybrids too (maybe even 1000€), and incentives to change your old car, and most of all, they invested heavily in trains (the German rail network is really slow, driving by car is often faster and they are lagging behind any EU plan for true high speed lines), that would make a change.

1M EV vehicles in 2020 in Germany? no way, Frau Merkel.

 

Thank you @pakitt! I knew you'd have a lot of details not found in the usual sources in the USA. I am curious if you'd considered the i3 with the Range Extended engine? I'm not trying to talk you out of a Prius but the i3-Rex looks like a good replacement for our 2003 Prius except for the small gas tank and inefficient engine operation.

Regardless, this reminds me of a $40 paper I bought in 2008:

"Hybrid vehicles: a temporary step", Jean-Jacques Chanaron Julius Teske, Int. J. Automotive Technology and Management, Vol. 7, No.4, 2007, pp 268-288​

I bought this paper in 2008 thinking it may have some useful insights. Then I read:

• It is concluded that even though hybrid technology can not yet be applied profitably it seems to be a key option to the industry due to its current positive perception in the USA. - Prius has been profitable since the Gen-2 and continues.
• Is such a strategy sustainable in the long run? - Well it is 2016 and Prius sales are the hybrid leader and Gen-4 on sale.
• Or is it a short- to mid-term option, which would then last only for a few years and thus remain to limited manufacturing volumes? - Hybrids have come and gone but usually because they were badly done (aka., Honda Insight-2.)
• What are the triggers to technical choice? - In the USA, miles per gallon, or Liter/100 km in Europe.
• Is it the lowest CO2 emission or a more complex efficiency mix between cost, pollution and energy? - Yes!

Since 2007, we have some answers. So I did a Google search and found Jean-Jacques Chanaron had something to say about the diesel scandal ... 'Aujourd'hui, en Europe, on met en cause le diesel à cause du CO2 mais on ne parle jamais des oxydes d'azote, contrairement aux Américains, explique-t-il.' Nothing found for Julius Teske who was a graduate student at the time of this paper.

There is an old saying that nothing is as permanent as a 'temporary fix.' Perhaps we should send this in a note to M. Chanaron and H. Teske.

Bob Wilson

 

wow !! look at them - being all Progressive, thought that kind of incentive would only go to diesels!
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wow !! A double dose of sanity. Be still my heart!
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