In less than a decade there will be more than one million electric vehicles (EVs) in Germany. That is the goal of the National Platform for Electric Mobility, a new alliance between Germany's largest manufacturers and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Europe, Asia and North America are expecting to see increasing numbers of greener cars. Grid operators in the US and Canada anticipate 1 million plug-in vehicles in North America within 5-10 years. China's major cities have a combined target that exceeds 1 million green cars by 2012. Firms like China’s BYD, Japan’s Nissan, South Korea’s LG Chem, and France’s Renault are already investing massively in greener car technologies.
Governments around the world are investing in hybrid and fully electric vehicles. Japan plans to invest $200 million dollars annually into developing batteries for EVs over five years and France will invest 400 million euros over fours years into research on hybrid power and EVs. The governments of the US, China, France and other EU states are also offering EV buyer incentives in the form of substantial subsidies.
When the Germans surveyed the market and realized that they were falling behind in electric vehicle technology, the country’s economic and transport ministers, as well as Chancellor Merkel called for concentrated, urgent efforts to catch up.
Although nothing breeds success like healthy competition, the German government is doing its part to help the auto industry develop low and zero emission vehicles.
In 2009 the German government awarded €21 million ($27.9 million) to a battery development consortium of 18 industrial and research partners, including chemical giant BASF, Volkswagen, the Fraunhofer Institute and the University of Berlin.
In May 2010 the German government announced a 12 million euros ($15.9 million) award for EV battery research. The award went to a lithium-ion project led by Volkswagen in a joint venture with Varta Microbattery.
In addition to the money invested in research, the German government is being asked to provide direct incentives to electric car buyers and support a broad network of recharging stations.
Germany's proud tradition of automotive excellence has helped it to become one of the world's largest vehicle manufacturing countries. Ten percent of all vehicles produced worldwide come off German production lines. For several decades the automobile industry has been a key sector in the German economy and the most active and largest Industry in the European Union.
Today Germany is also a renewable energy leader. With their new focus on EVs Germany will continue to be a global power, even when the internal combustion engine ceases to be an economic driver.
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