Source: Xinhua
The German government and car industry agreed on a “master plan” for charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, the president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) Bernhard Mattes told public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Tuesday.
The plan should clarify “necessary conditions” to expand Germany’s charging station network to enable up to ten and a half million electric vehicles to be on German roads by 2030, Mattes said.
Charging stations would be one of the “essential points for customer acceptance” of electric vehicles in Germany, added the VDA president.
During a three-hour meeting on Monday evening, German politicians and automotive industry representatives and trade unions had met to discuss the future of mobility in Germany. Financial commitments and subsidies had not been discussed during the meeting.
The provisional chair of the German Social Democrats (SPD) Malu Dreyer was also present at the meeting and described the imminent change as a major topic for existing jobs.
“We will not have less work; I have always been convinced of that, but we will have very different work,” Dreyer told German public broadcaster ARD on Tuesday.
Minister for Transport Andreas Scheuer said before the meeting that Germany needed to “become world champion in several disciplines” including e-mobility and alternative fuels in order to maintain its prosperity and meet its climate targets.
Sales of electric vehicles have remained slow in Germany, despite incentives such as a governmental stimulus program for buying electric cars that has just been extended until 2020.
Although new registrations of electric cars in Germany are increasing, the number of electric vehicles in Germany is still at a low level.
According to recent figures by the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), out of the more than 45 million cars in Germany, the number of electric cars in Germany as of Jan. 1 this year was only 83,000 and the number of hybrid cars was 341,000.
