Europe now leads the world market for electric cars, to the sound of public incentives ..

Several European countries are now exceptionally subsidizing the sale of electric vehicles, racing to overtake wealthy Asian nations and North American competitors who are also looking to make the change.

In the UK, energy regulator Ofgem is planning to make the roll-out of electric vehicles more attractive to consumers by allowing drivers to sell the electricity stored in their car batteries to the grid when demand is at peak levels. So the cars will become small diffuse accumulators of energy, but…. who will then charge the batteries, and how many?

Ofgem is optimistic that if enough new electric vehicle drivers take part in the scheme, which would allow the UK to avoid building power and storage plants….

There are currently over 535,000 electric vehicles, including hybrids, on the roads across the UK. However, this figure is expected to rise to 14 million by 2030. This will largely be in response to the planned ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in the UK from 2030. The new scheme plans to use smart charging capabilities to monitor the energy in electric vehicle batteries and demand levels on the grid.

The oil majors are already anticipating the electric vehicle curve with Shell planning to install 50,000 electric vehicle charging points on the road by 2025. Shell is working closely with local authorities, offering to pay the upfront costs for the installation of the charging station, with the state office for zero-emission vehicles pay 75% of the bill through subsidy schemes.

Meanwhile, Germany has announced that it will extend its subsidies to existing electric vehicles until 2025, originally scheduled to end in 2021, with the aim of creating greater uptake of electric vehicles across the country. In 2020, Germany doubled its incentives for electric vehicles, offering a bonus of € 3,000 for fully electric vehicles and € 2,250 for hybrids, as well as a 10-year tax exemption and lower VAT rates. Then there are the incentives offered by the producers.

In Germany, the largest electric vehicle market in Europe, electric vehicles accounted for around 1.8% of all new passenger car registrations in 2019, a figure that is increasing year on year. Smart, Seat, Mini and BMW were among some of the electric vehicle manufacturers to make significant gains in the German market, as we saw a 37 percent increase in electric vehicle uptake in May 2021 compared to the same month in 2020. Skoda , Kia, VW, Hyundai, Opel and Toyota also saw an increase in their electric vehicle sales, while Honda, Jaguar, Mercedes, and Mitsubishi electric vehicle sales decreased compared to 2020.

France has also joined the list of European countries to provide incentives for electric vehicles, offering domestic manufacturers, such as Renault, a support package to encourage more electric vehicle production. Remember that Renault and Peugeot are directly owned by the French state. The French government also offers consumers CO2-related tax exemptions, subsidies of up to 7,000 euros and a scrapping program for old, traditionally powered cars.

Similarly, Spain has reduced taxes on electric vehicles in major cities, also offering subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles ranging between 4,000 and 5,000 euros for the scrapping of old vehicles. And the Italian government is providing bonuses for low-carbon cars, penalizing high-carbon vehicles.

Many governments across Western Europe have decided to offer some sort of incentive for electric vehicle consumers as they push to decarbonise their economies and promote the shift from traditionally powered vehicles to electric alternatives. This, by dint of discounts, has made the European market the first in the world for electric vehicles, with 43.3%, while China is at 40%.

The European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) reported that nearly one in six cars registered in the European Union in the fourth quarter of 2020 was an electric vehicle, 16.5%, with 1.3 million units registered in Europe in 2020.

The variety of electric vehicle models available in Europe is also growing significantly, with consumers no longer limited to just Tesla and other expensive early models. The number of EV models available in 2021 is expected to be 214, up from just 98 in 2019.

So Europe is electrifying itself, at least in cars, all to the sound of contributions paid by taxpayers, not a drop in the cost of vehicles. Then on the generation of electricity and the true independence from carbon, the discourse is completely different.

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The article Europe now leads the world market for electric cars, to the sound of public incentives .. comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/leuropa-ora-guida-il-mercato-mondiale-per-le-auto-elettriche-a-suon-di-incentivi-pubblici/ on Sun, 12 Sep 2021 15:56:37 +0000.