Are you serious? Government electric car subsidy supports EVs abroad

The CAM is a research network composed of research institutions from various disciplines with headquarters in Karlsruhe. The goal is to investigate questions for vehicles and mobility from a holistic perspective and to develop comprehensive concepts and solutions for future automobiles. Now the researchers have proven with various vehicle manufacturers that there is a glaring difference between new registrations and the increase in the vehicle fleet for electric vehicles.

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According to the study, for example, around 26,000 Teslas were registered in the first nine months of 2021. Of these, around 4,800 vehicles later no longer appear in the German vehicle inventory. CAM even reports a discrepancy of over 20 percent for BMW. At VW, almost 6,000 vehicles in the inventory are "lost", which corresponds to about 11 percent of new registrations. On average, the value was 12.4 percent.

“The current incentive structures for electromobility are accordingly leading to undesirable side effects and significant market distortions,” comments study director Stefan Bratzel. “The legislator should promptly make appropriate adjustments to the environmental premium. One possible solution could be to increase the minimum holding period for electric vehicles from 6 months to 2 to 3 years. Additionally, in the long term, the focus should shift from the purchase to the use of electric vehicles. For example, free quotas for charging e-vehicles in the first 3 years could be considered.”

Some dealers specialize in reselling abroad

Currently, a customer only needs to own their electric car for at least six months to qualify for the government subsidy. Despite the depreciation, reselling abroad is profitable due to the high subsidies and short minimum holding period. More and more dealers have recognized this as a business model and have specialized in selling used electric cars abroad after six months. In Denmark, for example, the luxury tax is waived for used electric cars with mileage over 6000 kilometers at the time of registration. Naturally, this creates high demand—and accordingly high prices—for young used electric vehicles.

Up to 240 million in government subsidies went abroad

In the entire year of 2021, grant applications for the environmental bonus were submitted for the purchase of 625,260 electric cars. For this, the state provided a record sum of 3.1 billion euros. The CAM study now shows that the German state also subsidizes electric mobility abroad through the funding. Market observers estimate that in 2021 alone, up to 240 million euros in government subsidies for pure electric vehicles were not used as intended. This is in addition to the part of the purchase subsidy provided by car manufacturers, currently one third. In total, the misallocated funds amount to around 360 million.