- The “Elektromobilität vor Ort” conference on local electric mobility brings together municipalities, municipal companies, utilities, transport companies and fleet management companies
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- Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer announces a funding call for electric mobility concepts
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- Broad-based promotion of battery-electric mobility – from application research right up to market phase is the foundation for the rapid development of registration figures.
⠀ - The National Centre for Charging Infrastructure coordinates the development of an overall system that makes charging easy, reliable and available nationwide.
Berlin, 9 March 2021 – Electric mobility has developed very positively in Germany in 2020, particularly in the last quarter of the year. This happened despite the corona pandemic, which substantially impacted the overall vehicle market. In all, more than 430,000 electric cars were newly registered over the past year, around 210,000 of which were purely battery-electric vehicles. This means that one in seven newly registered vehicles has an electric drive (BEV) or is electrically supported (PHEV).
With this momentum, today the 7th “Elektromobilität vor Ort” conference of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) goes online. It begins the first of two conference days with around 2,000 participants and a welcome address from Andreas Scheuer, Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.
The “Elektromobilität vor Ort” specialist conference brings together municipalities, municipal companies, utilities, transport companies and fleet management companies in order to help emission-free mobility take root locally by providing practical tips, technical solutions and well-founded recommendations for action from the funded projects of the BMVI. The conference is organised by the NOW GmbH and the event partner is the metropolitan region of Hanover Braunschweig Göttingen Wolfsburg.
At the launch, Transport Minister Scheuer will announce a new funding call on electric mobility concepts: henceforth municipalities and now companies (a new addition) can receive funding for creating electric mobility concepts under the electric mobility guideline of the BMVI. In addition to research & development as well as investment projects, more than 200 concepts have been funded by the BMVI over the past five years, half of which are already complete.
Federal Minister Andreas Scheuer:
“The mobility of the future needs innovative concepts. That is why we are supporting projects that help to plan and further develop the use of electric mobility in the region. In municipalities in particular, there are many opportunities to convert to climate-friendly vehicles. The spectrum ranges from public buses to street cleaning or waste disposal to sustainable logistics. But in order for the switch to happen simply and seamlessly, we need good planning. We have already subsidised around 200 concepts, half of which have been completed. I very much hope that many more regions join in throughout the country.”
Kurt-Christoph von Knobelsdorff, Managing Director (Chair) of NOW GmbH:
The BMVI’s broad-based funding of battery-electric mobility – from application research right up to market phase is the foundation for the speedy development of the registration figures that we see today. The holistic funding approach supporting application-oriented R&D projects, e-mobility concepts and fleet electrification by municipalities and in future, also commercial providers, including the necessary charging infrastructure, will be continued. But battery-electric mobility can only become established on a broader scale if the charging infrastructure grows along with it. With the National Centre for Charging Infrastructure we are working on making charging simple, reliable and available nationwide in the future.
Funding programmes support battery-electric mobility
There are currently 112 applications that have been approved under a funding call for battery-electric commercial vehicles in skilled craft companies and SMEs. The switch to clean fleets is supported with almost 30 million euros. Another procurement call for vehicles and charging infrastructure runs until the end of March 2021. The call for research and development projects that has just ended has been oversubscribed many times over because of huge interest. The overall summary of the electric mobility programme after five years is the following: over 1,000 projects with more than 18,000 vehicles and around 8,000 infrastructure units for fleet applications supported by the BMVI.
The National Centre for Charging Infrastructure, established in 2020 under the umbrella of NOW GmbH, coordinates the implementation of the “Charging Infrastructure Master Plan”. Major goals include the construction of a public fast-charging network with 1,000 locations by the end of 2023. The installation of 50,000 publicly-accessible fast and regular charging points is also planned by the end of 2021. Furthermore the acceleration of the construction of private infrastructure through financial support and a better legal framework is also on the agenda. Plans are made from the user’s perspective: charging columns should be easy to find, reliably work, and the charging process should be transparent using the standard payment methods.
Practical information for municipalities can be found here www.starterset-elektromobilität.de
Information on all ongoing and completed projects and funding programmes are documented under the NOW homepage.