Berlin Robert Habeck’s plan to end subsidies for hybrid cars early met with fierce resistance. “A final decision against the promotion of hybrids endangers the ramp-up of electromobility and thus Germany as a business location,” said Hildegard Müller, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).
The traffic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Bernd Reuther, also explained: “In the coalition agreement, the traffic light parties agreed to continue the innovation bonus for plug-in hybrid vehicles as well. There is no reason to deviate from this agreement now.”
The dispute was triggered by plans by Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens). Habeck wants to end the funding for hybrids at the end of the year. In the coalition agreement, the compromise between the SPD, Greens and FDP was to only promote hybrids with a “demonstrably positive climate protection effect” from 2023. This should be based on the range that a car can achieve with its electric motor.
It is still unclear how Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) positions himself on Habeck’s initiative. There are two camps in the Ministry of Transport. Transformation must be paid for, and the technical implementation of the plan from the coalition agreement is not a problem, say some. “Of course it’s very easy to implement.”
The others think the end of the subsidy is right, since it should only ever be temporary and the e-car market has meanwhile gained momentum. “So there has to be an end,” it says in this camp.
Technical problems just an excuse?
There are different versions of Habeck’s deviation from the compromise. The plan in the coalition agreement would “lead to a disproportionately high effort,” according to circles in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Interfaces and reading the range on the car as well as an increased administrative effort for the authorities are necessary, and data protection issues must also be clarified.
However, it can also be heard from ministry circles that this argument is only a side issue. Above all, one sees no reason for further promotion of hybrids with a view to climate protection and the high profits that the car manufacturers are currently writing. The technical obstacles would come in handy as arguments.
A paper from the Ministry of Economics, which is available to the Handelsblatt, also supports this version. According to the ministry, there had already been a draft for the funding guideline with which the coalition agreement would have been implemented.
According to this, hybrids would only have been eligible if they had CO2 emissions per kilometer driven of a maximum of 50 grams or an electric range of at least 60 kilometers. But the doubts in the ministry were already clear in this draft, because it also said: “It cannot be ruled out that these funding criteria for [Hybridfahrzeuge] future […] be adjusted.”
Economy sees mistakes in the Ministry of Economic Affairs
Habeck himself put it more diplomatically on Wednesday. “In our opinion, plug-in hybrids are marketable and no longer need public funding,” he told the newspapers of the “Funke Media Group”.
Statements by VDA President Müller support the version that the technical feasibility of the compromise is only an excuse. “Technically it would not have been a problem, the car industry has also submitted proposals – but there was no binding definition of the control by the ministries,” Müller told the Handelsblatt.
This does not go down well with the coalition partner. Every vehicle that can be operated electrically makes a contribution to the climate goals, said FDP politician Reuther: “We have to make switching to such vehicles as attractive as possible and promote these vehicles accordingly.”
The line in the SPD is just as open as the question of whether the liberal-led Ministry of Transport will agree. The spokeswoman for transport policy, Dorothee Martin, told the Handelsblatt: “As correct as the support for the market launch is and was, it is correct to reduce this incentive again if the market works without this support.”
In doing so, she contradicts her parliamentary colleague Limbacher, who emphasizes that the plan from the coalition agreement does not fail because of the technology. “But the Greens don’t want to,” he said. Limbacher comes from Saarland.
The EU already had implementation plans
The Economics Minister there and future Prime Minister, Anke Rehlinger, negotiated the passage on the promotion of plug-in hybrids in the coalition negotiations.
In Saarland, a particularly large number of companies and thus jobs are dependent on the combustion engine. The automotive supplier ZF, for example, operates its leading plug-in hybrid plant in the federal state and wants to use the proceeds to finance the transformation to fully electric vehicles. With 9000 jobs, ZF is the largest employer in the Saar.
As early as 2020, the EU Commission initiated a regulation and then negotiated with the car manufacturers how the consumption data of vehicles will be recorded and transmitted to the authorities in the future. The new monitoring system is intended to prevent a new emissions scandal, as Commission circles in Brussels said at the time.
In the case of hybrid vehicles, it should be shown whether short distances are really driven electrically and the environmental bonus is therefore justified. “The availability of the recorded data, after aggregation and anonymization, will also improve the understanding of the actual operation and fuel consumption of plug-in hybrid vehicles,” said EU circles.
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