The federal government would like to support the purchase of an electric car in principle, which was a result of the car summit recently in the Chancellery. Now leading members of the SPD have specified how they could imagine this. Regardless of whether they are heard more broadly within the coalition, the question of who would benefit from an electric car bonus comes back into focus, whether these would primarily be foreign manufacturers or German car companies. Regarding the specific proposal from the SPD, it can be said: For such a bonus there would be a wide range of electric cars, including those made in Germany. And they could hope for an upswing, especially in the under-utilized factories that specialize solely in electric cars, i.e. in Zwickau and Emden (Volkswagen) and Cologne (Ford). And the Opel factory in Eisenach, which is set up for various types of drive, but only the single Grandland model, could also benefit. What exactly is it about? The SPD parliamentary group speakers Jakob Blankenburg, Isabel Cademartori and Sebastian Roloff suggest paying a premium of 3,000 euros per car when buying new or used cars with battery-electric drives, up to a net list price of 45,000 euros. That would be a price of 53,550 euros including VAT. They would like the bonus to be linked to an income limit and therefore only be available for “low and middle incomes”. They haven’t yet described in detail how this is supposed to work. Price reduction from the manufacturer is on top of that. Currently, the price list of electric cars manufactured in Germany by Volkswagen, for example, with the ID.3 from Zwickau starts at 33,330 euros. The electric Opel Astra from Rüsselsheim has a list price of 37,990 euros, the Ford Explorer from Cologne officially starts at 39,900 euros. Both Volkswagen and Ford are already offering private car buyers a price discount online, Volkswagen of 3,500 euros and Ford a “recommended promotional price” that is 1,995 euros lower. The proposal launched by the SPD anyway requires manufacturers to double the state purchase premium again. For Volkswagen and Ford, it would be possible to convert the in-house price reduction into a doubling of the premium. In general, however, all car manufacturers are currently selling electric cars with a minimal profit margin or even at a loss, just to secure a share in the hoped-for ramp-up of electromobility – and to be able to comply with EU rules for fleet emissions. The assumption behind the proposal put forward by the SPD that it should be quite easy for car companies to forego part of a supposedly generous margin by doubling the e-car premium has no basis in reality. In the list of net list prices within the price limit of 45,000 euros, the German premium brands are only represented with one or two models, Mercedes with the Compact SUV EQA, the BMW Group with the SUV iX1 and the electric Mini Countryman, also manufactured in Leipzig on the same technical basis. Audi offers the Q4 as an SUV and as an SUV coupé. However, in contrast to Volkswagen, the Ford factory in Cologne and the Opel Grandland production in Eisenach, the German premium brands have car factories that are much more flexible. BMW and Mercedes, and Audi for the larger cars, produce both the combustion engine and the electric version on the same production lines. It is then possible to have more combustion engines running on the same production line if demand for electric cars is low. In contrast, the Volkswagen Group in particular wanted to achieve the advantages of large quantities of specialized production more quickly with specialized factories for electric cars. But so far there is no demand for it. Cheap car, cheap battery. All other models from the premium brands are more expensive. But they are already supported in other ways anyway. When it comes to taxation on company cars – and especially among the expensive cars in Germany, most are registered as company or company cars – the tax burden is significantly reduced. For the private use of a company car with a combustion engine, twelve percent of the list price and 0.36 percent of the list price per kilometer from the place of work must normally be taxed as income each year. If the distance to work is 22 kilometers, this is a total of 20 percent of the list price, for a car with a list price of 60,000 euros, i.e. 12,000 euros per year, which is included in the taxable income. For battery-electric cars, on the other hand, only a quarter of the value of combustion engines is taken into account, i.e. only 3,000 euros for a 60,000-euro car. The SPD proposal now calls for the already higher taxation of combustion engine company cars to be significantly tightened in order to use the proceeds to support the expansion of electromobility. More on the topic Show more The representatives of the SPD parliamentary group are apparently planning to limit the funding to car buyers with small and medium incomes anyway. The main question then arises as to whether such buyers can actually afford a new car priced at over 50,000 euros. Although there are also very cheap electric cars, they are not necessarily particularly suitable for everyday use. The cheap purchase price also arises because car manufacturers save on battery costs by installing cheap and therefore small batteries. In addition, such cheap electric cars can usually only be charged very slowly, which in turn precludes fast charging on long journeys and limits their suitability for everyday use. In this sense, the cheapest Volkswagen, the ID.3 with a battery of 52 kWh, an everyday range of around 300 kilometers and a charging capacity of 145 kW, represents a minimum for everyday mobility that is not just short distances contains. In addition, there are significantly larger batteries and higher charging power for cars from the VW Group, but also for those from Ford or Tesla, and these models would also be within the proposed price limits. Beneficiaries Stellantis and Renault What could be useful for all sides is that the subsidy should also be paid for the purchase of electric used cars. On the one hand, this could create interest in the particularly depressed market for electric used cars. The bottom line could be that this could improve the bottom line for car companies and dealers from the sale of used electric cars. This would in turn limit the – previously high – loss in value of electric cars, and in this way the leasing rates for new electric cars could also be lower in the end. The authors of the SPD proposal generally want “social leasing” for low-income households, also in combination with the purchase premium. No details are given. The very cheap electric cars never come from Germany because the manufacturers in German factories concentrate on higher-quality models simply because of the labor costs. Therefore, the public desire for cheaper electric cars generally comes to nothing from the perspective of German industrial policy. The biggest beneficiaries of a German subsidy could be the French car companies Stellantis (including the Opel brand) and Renault, which offer smaller electric cars. Stellantis in particular offers a wide range of electric cars with standardized technology in its large brand portfolio. The loser of a net price threshold of 45,000 euros could be the large electric VW ID.7 manufactured in Emden. Its list price including VAT is just 555 euros above the proposed price limit.
Go to Source