A government program to encourage the installation of charging stations for electric cars in Germany has sparked a rather unexpected enthusiasm among people, which resulted in the allocated budget being exhausted within hours.
State-owned bank KfW said on Wednesday that a 300 million euro package provided by the Ministry of Transport for 2023 has already been used up due to high demand for a financing program called “Solar Energy for Electric Vehicles”.
33,000 requests in less than 24 hours
This program offered individual financial assistance in the amount of up to €10,200 for the purchase and installation of a charging station associated with a photovoltaic installation and battery storage. To be eligible for this financing, owners had to own or pre-order an EV.
Approximately 33,000 applications were approved in less than 24 hours. KfW was forced to react by publishing a statement on its website inviting potential applicants not to submit new applications.
The German Ministry of Transport initially allocated total budget of 500 million euros to subsidize these institutions. At the moment, 200 million euros remain to be released.
Charging stations as a transition vector
According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany already had almost 79,000 “classic” charging stations and more than 18,500 fast charging stations.
A survey of solar charging station users by the Ministry of Transport found that the use of self-generated solar power often shifted charging to times of the day when the electricity grid was less busy, thus helping to reduce the pressure on electricity. network
Despite this enthusiasm for electric cars and solar charging stations, Germany still falls short of the government’s goal of seeing 15 million electric cars on the road by 2030.
End of 2022, slightly more than a million fully electric vehicles were in circulation in the countryafter accelerating the rollout last year, thanks in part to a gradual reduction in bonuses for buying electric cars.
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Source: Auto Plus
Robert is an experienced journalist who has been covering the automobile industry for over a decade. He has a deep understanding of the latest technologies and trends in the industry and is known for his thorough and in-depth reporting.