Electric car purchase bonus: the number of applications doubled in 2021

This year, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) received 585,000 applications for a purchase premium for electric cars, more than twice as many as in 2020. BAFA informed the dpa of this on request. Accordingly, 3 billion euros were paid out in funding, 4.7 times the amount of the previous year.

Buyers of electric cars, plug-in hybrids and other cars with environmentally friendly drives have been able to apply for the environmental bonus since July 2016. According to BAFA, 9023 applications were submitted by January 1, 2017, 46,897 by January 31 of the same year and 91,498 by the end of 2018. A total of around one million applications have been submitted since funding began.

Extended duration

In June 2020, the federal government decided to double the amount of the purchase premium as part of the Corona aid. Initially by the end of this year, it rose from 3,000 to 6,000 euros for e-vehicles with a net list price of up to 40,000 euros. In addition, there is a subsidy from the manufacturer. Economics Minister Robert Habeck has already announced that the funding period will be extended to the end of 2022. From 2023 onwards, only electric vehicles that have been shown to have a positive effect on climate protection are to be funded. BAFA’s current list of eligible vehicles (PDF) contains 673 vehicle models and designs.

From January 2022 onwards, plug-in hybrid vehicles with a maximum CO₂-Emission per kilometer driven exceeds 50 grams and which have a purely electric range of less than 60 kilometers, no longer eligible for funding. So far, the limit value has been an electric range of 40 kilometers. The vehicles that will no longer be subsidized from January 1, 2022 include the Audi Q7 55 TFSI e quattro, the Jeep Wrangler PHEV Rubicon, Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 e 4MATIC SUV (MJ 800) and the Volvo XC60 Recharge T8 AWD Inscription .

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(anw)