German officials want to invest big in electric cars and charging infrastructure.
The cabinet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking to put one million electric cars on the country’s roads by the end of the next decade.
Car makers like Volkswagen and Daimler could receive about 500 million euros (about $705 million) in financial sweeteners from the government aimed at supporting the manufacture and sale of electric cars, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
The plans also foresee hundreds of millions of euros aimed at increasing the production of batteries and ensuring that German experts are trained in the technology, according to The Associated Press.
Sigmar Gabriel, the country’s environment minister, told German television that the introduction of electric cars into the German market would have the additional benefit of helping drive down the price of carbon-based fuels for those who chose not to swap to battery power, according to Deutsche Welle.
But Mr. Gabriel reportedly added that the technology for efficient and safe electric cars would not be in place until 2011 at the earliest, in part because batteries still needed to be made safer and smaller.
In fact the economics of making electric cars for a mass market are still largely unproven.
But that hasn’t stopped companies from asking governments to help them roll out electric models. Nissan has reportedly been in negotiations with British authorities to support its plans to produce a fully electric-powered car — a five-door family-sized hatchback called Leaf — that would be ready for showrooms next year.
Ontario, in Canada, has also announced a subsidy that is widely expected to help sales of the new Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid car that will go on sale in 2010.
And President Barack Obama has announced $2.4 billion of support for the electric-vehicle sector in the United States.
SOURCE: greeninc.blogs.nytimes
