E-Autos: Warum die Verkehrswende scheitert | frontal

The Bettenhausen car dealership is one of the largest used vehicle dealers in the area. The head of the company, Gido Bettenhausen, is not very enthusiastic about the ecological transition in his sector. He still has hybrid vehicles with fully electric cars. We no longer have fully electric vehicles. We came to the shipyard because we had the vehicles that had been sitting with us for a long time, they did not ask for them and we also suffered losses. In my opinion, politicians are clearly to blame. Because state funding has been cancelled, so of course customers have no interest.

More and more people are buying combustion engines or, in my opinion, diesel works well again. More climate protection in transport. The federal government has been pursuing this goal for 8 years. with a state environmental bonus, more recently about 4,500 euros for the purchase of an electric car. The number of registrations increased to 524,000 in the record year of 2023. The registered electric cars are mainly company cars, but this boom came to an abrupt end following the budget decision. According to the Constitutional Court, Federal Economics Minister Habck canceled the environmental bonus planned until the end of 2024 in December without prior notice, while 55,000 electric cars were registered in Germany in December 2023.

The figures available in January were reduced by half. to 22,500 and in February to 27,500 new electric cars. If the consumer realizes that the politician is no longer behind something, he will leave him alone. Public interest has been lost. Automakers are still trying to do something. It's great to counteract discounting, but we think it's not sustainable for long. Automotive expert Dudenhöffer analyzes the price war for electric cars since the beginning of the year. There are double-digit discounts from almost all manufacturers, for example from VW. If you receive an offer for the all-electric ID3 Golf, the car still cost more than €40,000 last year and now costs almost €33,000.

For the automobile industry, this means that people are increasingly turning to the combustion engine again. These discussions about the end of the combustion engine are followed very closely in the automobile industry and now almost everyone is talking about this electric vehicle. about we need the combustion engine for longer, for example Mercedes before 3 For years it was said in advertising that we have a clear message: Mercedes is ready to be 100% electric in 2030. That no longer sounds so euphoric today, on request from Mercedes. says up front that customer demand for fully electric vehicles is continuously increasing in many markets and developing more slowly than initially expected, so we will be able to offer combustion vehicles if necessary until the 2030s.

Acceleration is necessary significantly, we do not. However, in around 40% of the municipalities I have charging stations and in two thirds of them there are no fast charging points. To meet the federal government's goals, I need to triple the charging speed of charging points. who can use their car at all times and charge it anywhere in Germany, there are currently 105,000 charging stations, a far cry from the political goal of one million charging stations by 2030, something that critics also consider completely unrealistic. Expectations on registration figures so far are 1.3 million fully electric cars by 2030, there should be 15 million. It will hardly be possible to reach millions, especially if electromobility is only worthwhile for those with higher incomes and owners of their own home, because the acquisition costs are relatively expensive and operation is cheap, especially if a photovoltaic system can be installed. on the roof and, of course, charge it economically at home, and in this sense, currently, a large part of the population is still lagging behind the possibility of moving economically and cleanly with electromobility.

Unresolved issues on the transition to transport also make the work of Clemens techm difficult. Park's electrical engineering company builds titech solutions for charging stations. The biggest problem is that public power grids are too weak. that our clients, large companies, have hundreds of parking spaces that they would mostly like to electrify and equip with charging infrastructure, but there is often a problem with the electrical connection of the building, which is simply not designed to charge hundreds of vehicles at the same time This is what we normally consider a task for municipalities, so that this service is also available for buildings.

Example: Wuppertal, the suspension railway for about 120 years of electromobility. According to

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investigations. Euros are needed to renew the static electricity grid not only for electric cars, but also for the energy transition with thousands of heat pumps. Wuppertal's municipal companies do not deny the billion-dollar estimate, but when asked, the company remains silent. The city of Wuppertal will soon start work on municipal heating planning, it is still too early to make a realistic estimate of the costs. We need faster planning and approval procedures for electricity networks. We need energy suppliers who are prepared. Will these power grids also be built? a federal network agency that also initiates proper regulation, i.e. it is not just about the charging station, but also about the infrastructure behind it.

There is also a sense of crisis here at the battery research center. If we have been disappointed by the policy regarding basic research, how is it possible that lithium batteries become the heart of electromobility, more sustainable, more powerful and cheaper? Many scientists here probably can no longer get paid because the government has drastically cut funding following the budget verdict. Winter, spokesperson for German Battery Research, wrote a fiery letter to the federal government about the promises: 750 million euros for 5 years are barely enough. Now 70 million euros are planned for the same F years, which is not even 10%. And ultimately, the reputation of the issue of battery-powered electromobility is also the energy transition, which will suffer enormous damage.

Internationally, my colleagues abroad ask me: What are you doing there in Germany? Do you want to go back to that? Going back to the fossil era, around 1.5 billion euros of taxes have already been invested in the so-called Battery City Münster. This also includes the test center for the latest battery cell production at the Frauenhofer Institute. , whose entry into operation is scheduled for the end of April. More construction projects are planned with billions of euros coming from taxes. Now what's at stake is that you've built something with a lot of money and now you can just let it go. waste to save a little money and you can call it that, it is already a ruined investment if it continues like this then it is very bad for battery research near electric mobility in the crisis we ask the Minister of Economy who has canceled the Environmental bonus There are no answers to our questions from the Ministry of Economy, other ministries are responsible, the Ministry of Transport does not respond either, the Ministry of Research withdraws its response and the Ministry of the Environment only responds in general about electric mobility.

Course courses finally lead to decline in Brussels, electromobility is put to the test again CSU politician Manfred Weber Leader of the EVP group in the European Parliament wants to reverse the combustion engine from 2035 the electric car is not yet suitable for the masses, that's why the combustion engine engine is a serious mistake and we should get the majority next. In the European Parliament, we, as Christian Democrats, will ensure that this ban is reversed. What matters is not the politics of how we fight to achieve the objectives, but the electromobility market. , slowed by the faltering course of the federal government.

Climate targets on German roads cannot be achieved in this way.