Despite low Incentives Germany Leads Electric Car Race

Sep 27 2011

Hats off to our German friends this morning: we have just learned that the German market for electric cars is much more buoyant than the UK one – despite that country offering consumers the lowest subsidy rates in Europe.

According to the latest statistics published by Jato Dynamics, German car buyers, utilising both cash and car loans, bought more than a thousand electric vehicles during the first six months of 2011.  This is nearly double the paltry 599 electric vehicles sold in the UK during the same period.

Jato’s findings seem to point to an interesting phenomenon: higher incentives to buy electric cars do not necessarily stimulate consumer demand.  Denmark has the highest tax breaks for EV purchases in the European Union, yet its consumers are not buying electric cars in any significant numbers.

Danish tax exclusions amount to (potentially) an amazing 20,588 Euros per car, yet consumers in this country bought only 283 electric cars during the first six months of 2011.  This is a mere 0.32% of new vehicle registrations in Denmark.

The UK, on the other hand, is at least doing better than Spain in this regard.  In Spain the incentives are roughly comparable to that of the UK, yet the number of electric cars sold in the UK was five times higher than the nearly negligible 122 sold in Spain between January and June 2011.

The total number of electric cars sold across Europe came to 5,222 for the first half of 2011.
 

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