Germany’s Economy Minister Says Ready To Support EV Battery Manufacturers

The Economy Minister of the current administration in Germany, Peter Altmaier, was recently quoted as saying that the government there was ready to begin offering support for regional plug-in electric vehicle battery manufacturing, it has been reported.

The German Economy Minister noted that one of the possibilities on the table was the idea of perhaps exempting the firm’s locally manufactured plug-in electric vehicle (EV and PHEV) batteries from some of the country’s current energy levies.

If such a course of action ends up being pursued, it would represent quite a change of approach by the government of Germany, which to date has not done much to support a transition by the auto manufacturers based in the country to plug-in electric vehicles.

The only real support for the industry to date has been the launch of an incentives program for those purchasing such vehicles — the much more important problem of economically manufacturing such vehicles locally has not yet been touched. That still being the case, “support” (of a sort) for diesel cars has remained strong by the German government despite the effects on public health of such support.

Reuters provides a bit more information on the matter: “Speaking at an industry event, he said the production of batteries for electric cars was not necessarily a matter for carmakers, but the future manufacture of battery cells must be guaranteed. The German government would support that.”

“Altmaier said a possibility might be to exempt the batteries’ energy-intensive production from some electricity charges. He added that decisions must be made soon on electric vehicles and future technology in cars.”

That would likely be an understatement, as the German auto manufacturers seem to be positioning themselves for a large amount of lost market share before too long, due to the continued delay tactics used to avoid entering the sector in a serious way (while still appearing to be doing so, so as to appease investors).