Monday, May 27, 2013

Es ist elektrisch

And they have ways of making you motor für das Vaterland, like it or not;
In efforts to promote environment-friendly mobility, the German government is seeking to boost the number of electric cars to one million by 2020. But the cars' shortcomings keep Germans from driving automotive change.
Out of about 43 million passenger cars currently registered in Germany, not more than 7,000 are electrically driven. Nevertheless, the country's environment minister Peter Altmaier still clings to the government's ambitious goal of one million electric cars to be registered by 2020.
"We need to promote the use of e-cars as company cars," he told an inauguration ceremony for an e-mobility project run by German mail and logistics firm Deutsche Post. By the end of the year, the former state-owned company aims to establish a fleet of 79 electric delivery trucks.
79! A start, we guess. A German government clinging to an unrealistic goal, though...problem;
For ordinary German drivers, electrically driven automobiles were still riddled with problems, ranging from the limited mileage achieved by the cars to a lack of re-charging points and insufficient home infrastructure for re-charging.
In addition, e-cars cost about 50 percent more than conventional vehicles, [Stefan] Bratzel [director of the Center for Automotive Management - a research think tank] said, which hardly anyone was willing to pay. He urged manufacturers to close the price gap within the next few years. 
If they know what's good for them?

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