German government expands subsidies for electric cars | Hacker News Reader

German government expands subsidies for electric cars

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It is pretty blatant that they are increasing it by 50% to support Volkswagen's conversion to electric.

Most of the other comments seem quite negative. It is protectionism, but it applies to most electric cars and is a step in the right direction. It is late and selfish, but better than the alternative.

Volkswagen isn't going to convert to electric anytime soon.

Electric cars only make 1% of the annual car registrations in Germany and 0.18% of the total number of cars registered.

In fact, Volkswagen is planning a new factory for cars with combustion engines in Turkey. It's just currently put on hold due to the conflict at the Syrian border.

Of course a giant company like Volkswagen won't turn around on a dime, it will be a slow transition; and probably never a complete one.

But just from the fact that electric cars have a 5 times higher share of new registrations than of existing cars shows that it's a growing market, and adoption curves usually grow exponentially until you approach market saturation. Volkswagen is doing a lot to get a bigger piece of that pie.

> Of course a giant company like Volkswagen won't turn around on a dime, it will be a slow transition; and probably never a complete one.

Yes, there is a long tail of applications where EVs are not a reasonable proposition. Emergency services (police, medical, fire fighting) come to mind immediately. There is pretty much no way you can built an all-electric fire truck with batteries that isn't much worse than ICE fire trucks today: Battery weight means you can carry less water, which directly reduces operational capability; limited battery charge means the truck's pumps don't last as long, and a battery is much harder to refuel in the field than a tank of diesel. Similar reasons apply to ambulances. Some L.E. vehicles can reasonably be made to work as EVs (patrol cars), others not so much. Whenever you need to maximize off-grid operational time or you continuously need a lot of power, EVs are just not a sane option.

Additionally the small number of these vehicles make their emissions rather irrelevant.

> and a battery is much harder to refuel in the field than a tank of diesel.

You can use fuel cells. Harder than a tank of diesel (less energy dense), but not by much.

Most fire trucks in Germany would actually work well as EV: they rarely carry water, just pumps (places without hydrants are required by law to have water stored in a tank or lake); range isn't an issue since any place is reached by emergency services in under 10 minutes, even accounting for large scale operations that's not a lot of distance unless we are talking highly specialized vehicles; and the better acceleration of EVs might be a major speed boost. Similar reasoning applies to ambulances: small distances but high acceleration requirements.

Of course in sparsely populated places like much of the US this looks completely different. Another class of vehicle that will hold onto ICE for a long while will be farming vehicles. I don't see a farmer recharging his combine harvester in the middle of the field until we have made significant advances in battery tech.

Tanklöschfahrzeuge normally do use their internal tanks, at least in my area. This makes sense because it reduces response time and you can start pumping out water immediately while the connection to the water line is made.

The problem is not so much the driving range, that is true. The problem is that taking out a fire might take 10 minutes, 10 hours or 10 days. The electric truck is fine for 10 minutes, but it won't be fine when you have to stay on site for a couple hours.

Fire trucks don't need much range and can charge between call outs.

Certainly ICE cars will make up most of their business for a while but they have converted a factory from ICE to EV [0] and are planning to invest 50B EUR in the effort [1].

[0] https://electrek.co/2019/11/04/vw-id3-production-electric-ca...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-strategy/vw-em...

But they also announced that they will not work on a new generation of combustion engines anymore:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-comb...

Volkswagen has transformed a factory already and is starting mass production with 100000 cars for next year. From 2021 on Zwickau will produce electric cars only. Factories in Emden and Hannover will follow in 2022.

https://www.freiepresse.de/nachrichten/sachsen/volkswagen-be...

Not only VW, any company can opt-in to the subsidies: the state pays half and the company the other half.

What's funny is how the requirement of a <= 60k EUR car price means that those buying a Tesla won't get any subsidies. It's kind of understandable though: in Germany most cars are sold in the 10-20k EUR range, so it would be political suicide to create a subsidy to pay for what most citizens consider a luxury. Subsidizing cars in the 40k-60k EUR is quite outrageous already IMO.

In NL we have this subsidy for the rich.

The people I see driving around in Tesla (or large Audi/Volvo) here aren't really rich, more have a decent job and a willingness to spend a substantial amount of money on a car.

I don't understand it personally, I prefer cycling and having my mortgage paid off but everyone to their own :)

I guess if you're in your 50s then you paid very little for your house so it makes sense to pay the 1200 EUR a month net for a car.

If you can afford a car for 60k € you are among the top 10% richest persons on the planet.

I mean, generally I do not disagree, but that makes a lot of assumptions about depreciation rate, interest rate, and OpEx.

I don't know the numbers, but a Tesla is specifically attractive for a business owner. The subsidy is absurd.

The government has acknowledged this now, and it will tapered down / abolished. Not sure.

The biggest subsidy is given to old cars - instead of using the new price you can use the market price. It's very common for business owners to purchase these old luxury cars with company money then pay 21% of the market price a year instead of 21% of the sale price.

For electric cars you pay 4% of the new price for the first 50k then 21% over the rest. Your employer pays the lease itself (about 1.2k EUR for a Model 3 last I checked).

Although this is marketed as a "tax cut to the rich" that isn't completely true. Most new car sales here come from leases. In 4 years time these cars will hit the second hand market and be bought by people like me.

We should absolutely be increasing tax on the most environmentally unfriendly leases and using that money to fund the lower rate on pure electric cars. Let the SUV drivers pay.

A lot of these electricity subsidies are for the rich or well off in the UK you could get a twenty year guaranteed 8% return on investment of 10k for solar.

Which is great you like Me or my parents who have a spare 8-10k - if your a single mom living in rented accommodation who buys her electricity via a key not so much.

> buys her electricity via a key not so much.

What does "via a key" mean?

I am not sure of the current mechanism, but I know the UK has "coin" systems for gas ( heating ). So you would buy a coin, put it into your meter at home, and get a certain amount of gas.

This is, of course, tailored at the poor.

And of course is more expensive see the Vimes Boot Theory

Tesla Model 3 has a base price of 44.5K EUR.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/13/tesla-model-3-vs-bmw-3-...

Why link to some 3rd party site when you can link to the source of truth, the Tesla site [0] (currently at 44.390€)?

https://www.tesla.com/de_DE/model3/design

Because it took me through a landing page in German.

I'd honestly pick a site that gives me the correct figure at any time after potentially having to click through a German landing page (which I'm not getting to be honest and it's the first time I visit from this browser and machine) [0] than one I can understand fully but gives me an outdated (potentially wrong) number.

It's not out of the question that Tesla drops the price to 39.999E without the fancy AP hardware so people take full advantage of the subsidy.

[0] https://imgur.com/g8fXoin

That still seems to be covered:

> For electric cars over €40,000, there will be an increase in the subsidy by 25%. Any car priced over €60,000 will not supported by the scheme.

That's an expensive car in European standards. 20k is what most people pay for a car here. 45k car is a luxury imho.

In which European state is this I bet there is a difference between the ex Warsaw pact sates where a Trabant or a 2 generation old Fiat was a luxury, and the Rich parts of Germany or the UK

Living in Western Germany I mostly see vehicles in the 10k-25k range. There is a difference if you go to the most expensive cities though, like Munich.

You cant use anecdotes here you need to look at the figures - at one point Greece had the highest number (relative to population) of Porsche Caynnes

Which Europe are you talking about? 20k gets you a halfway decent Dacia at best...

Maybe I’m from a background where 45k for a car seems like a rich people thing. That’s how I feel

Just to clarify. I come from a background where buying a fresh new BMW or Mercedes or Audi from the factory (latest model) is something rich people do. Middle class can not afford that.

For 48k EUR I can buy a decent Porsche Panamera, for example. https://www.autoscout24.de/angebote/porsche-panamera-4-s-ind...

For 20k EUR I get a decent Mercedes C 220: https://www.autoscout24.de/angebote/mercedes-benz-c-220-c-kl...

or a decent E350 with 40k km (similar to the one I bought, see below): https://www.autoscout24.de/angebote/mercedes-benz-e-350-t-cd...

etc. The only people buying new cars in Germany are either private companies / leasing companies, or rich people that don't know what to do with their money.

You can get pretty much any 2 year old car with 20-40k km for 1/2 of the original price in perfect condition, and 1/4 of the original price with 100k km and being 3 year old model which is more or less what many leasing car get in the 2-3 years its leased.

I was looking for a car in the ~<80k EUR segment early this year and ended up paying 26k for an E350 from 2016 with 60k km and 3 years warranty, and buying a super sport bike also used for 9k as well instead, and saved over 50k EUR in the process that I ended up putting in ETFs.

Buying new cars makes zero economic sense. Even if you try to buy from the German manufacturers here, their websites offer you used cars ("refubrished") with 5 years warranty for a fraction of the price.

If you are looking for a car in the 40k EUR segment, for buying new to be worth it would mean that 20k EUR are "nothing" for you, which is hard to believe because if that were the case you'd be actually looking at cars in at least the 80-120k range. Even for somebody making 120k EUR/year, 20k EUR is still not pocket change, its two months salary full-time.

The only issue I have with this is that you can't really buy used EVs yet. I'm interested in buying an EV but it's like smartphones in 2008 - the rate of improvement is high so it makes sense to buy new.

You can buy used EVs, but for example, used teslas are in the 40k EUR range, which is quite expensive.

I'm not sure why they are so expensive, but I can imagine that if you have to retrofit the battery system for 20-30k EUR before reselling them, then that's going to drive their price up quite a bit.

Yes, just checked. Weird, a college got one early this year, and paid slightly over 70k EUR for a model 3.

Tesla's lower-end Model 3s fall in that range. Tesla will be announcing their European Gigafactory soon (most likely in Germany), so it is in Germany's best interest to make Teslas more attainable as well. It will increase local jerbs and decrease carbon emissions.

The most likely placement of the factory is actually in Poland, just east of Germany. It's a great place to have factories, right next door to Germany, and the wider Europe. I'd say Poland is the main candidate for where they'll place anything. Close enough and so much cheaper.

Not involved with any of this! Poland stronk. We love Poland in any case.

Not according to Musk and his tweets. The Dutch/French/German border area is what he stated the likely candidate. Plus Tesla Grohman and Tesla EU HQ are nearby.

I cannot confirm this first hand, but I've heard water cooler stories about Tesla software nerfing the range of their model 3s in Canada. This lowers the base price of vehicle enough to be eligible for a federal subsidy. Once the subsidy is claimed, the owner can buy a software upgrade from the dealer to restore the model 3 to full capability. Pretty sly trick.

No, that model isn't really even for sale here in Canada. It only exists for the subsidy. The way the subsidy was worded was that if the lowest price of a vehicle was under a threshold then you'd get the subsidy on the other versions, so they created a basically unpurchasable version for that purpose. (I believe you actually have to email the company to purchase it. I doubt there's been even one purchase).

As part of this expansion they are raising the limit from 60k € to 65k €

> the company the other half.

How does that work?

Assuming a base state of

* Car costs $34000, subsidy is $4000, manufacturer pays $2000

How are the two following scenarios different:

* Car costs $34000, subsidy is $5000, manufacturer pays $2000

* Car costs $35000, subsidy is $6000, manufacturer pays $3000

It seems like the "manufacturer pays half" thing is just a trick to make the subsidy appear more palatable to voters/taxpayers, since effectively, the manufacturer is paying itself.

It may have some cronyism to it, but so does the way China massively subsidizes its green tech. In the end, we want to support EVs and get the transition going as fast as we can, and this policy will help somewhat.

Blatant and obvious lobbying by the extremely powerful German car industry. The subsidy includes premium brand plug-in hybrids such as BMW 330e and Mercedes C class - i.e. typical company cars that will very rarely use the electric engine. As gibolt mentioned, it also helps VW selling their new models.

Why not subsidize public transport instead? Why has the German government been unable to make (useful) climate protection laws in the past years, but these odd subsidies are no problem?

True. On the other hand, at least VW is partly owned by the state.

Also, I think it's good to get into renewables for the climate and to cut the monarchs and autocrats off from their money in the long run.

Looks like VW is actually more owned by Qatar than any part of the German state:

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/InvestorRelations/shares/sha...

Edit: Saxony does get more voting rights than Qatar.

You mean Lower Saxony. Saxony is a different state on the other side of Germany, that has no voting rights in VW.

It should be noted that all the profit from state owned shares ends up in the independent Volkswagen Foundation (promoting science), not the state budget.

> typical company cars that will very rarely use the electric engine

This is backwards, plugin hybrids rarely use their gas engines. BMW 330e 2020 has a 20 mile electric only range (about the same as Prius Prime). Average German car trip distance is 11 miles [0] Even if the trip is longer than 20 miles, it will only use the gas after the electric runs out.

[0] Large PDF, average car trip distance on page 50 https://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/Driving_and_parking_...

It should be that way, in a perfect world. I believe there was a study/survey in the UK. Business owners take the extra subsidies to get a cheaper fleet. They found that only a tiny portion had even unwrapped the charging cables, treating them just like an ICE vehicle.

Can't seem to find the link :/

My brother has one. He always uses electric first.

While that's unfortunate, I'm wondering how long these fleets keep cars before they're sold? It seems like this would improve availability of plug-in hybrids on the used car market.

If I understand that correctly, the survey includes all kinds of trips, including short daily drives grocery shopping and commutes. I think typical business trips in Germany are significantly above that average, but I might be wrong.

edit: Anecdotal: My father-in-law is a typical German field staff. Average daily driving distance is ~60 miles. And he certainly would not charge the car at home over night, from his private electricity bill. I doubt many people would.

Do you have any numbers that back up what percentage of German driving is covered by what you are talking about? I gave numbers for average German driving, therefore more than 50% of German driving trips can be handled with no gas by a plugin hybrid. This cannot be considered "rarely" as was your original contention. Even your 60 mile example, 1/3 of the distance being covered by electric is not "rarely".

Do plugin hybrids or EVs solve all current transportation problems for all transport distances? No. Is there a issue with subsidizing luxury vehicles? Yes. But I wanted to correct your incorrect statement about plugin hybrids.

You are right, the average car trip is covered by plugin hybrids. I was referring to business trips, i.e. the typical clientele of the car types in my OP. The average business driving distance (not commute) is twice the average of all drives. (source: Chapter 3.2 in [1]) If only businessmen/fieldstaff/etc. are taken into account and no craftsmen/tradesmen numbers would be even higher. (read: drivers of said premium hybrids vs. box wagons)

[1] https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/statistik_mobilitaet_in_deutsch...

I stand by my contention that 1/3 of a 60 mile trip being run on electric is not "rare".

The German auto industry is 5% of their economy, employing nearly a million people. Imagine the fire (no pun intended) Tesla is setting under them, as the premium (most profitable) sales plummet across the industry.

They decided to subsidize the industry to drive growth and help their big players quickly get to scale where they can make a profit. The alternative is they cease to exist and Germany suffers.

I'm all for public transit, but people there won't stop buying cars. Might as well buy local.

There is some truth to that but they already do make insane profits. This is just another icing on the cake that primarily tries to incentivize people that are already well off (as anyone that buys an electric cars right now).

While they certainly have deficiencies in the software department compared to Tesla and Germany not being the best place to test autonomous vehicles, they had electric cars for years now. The produced few because the market isn't really convinced yet.

Companies are the primary customers. Some of our workers use electric vehicles because they got a company car, but nobody owns one.

Apart from a nuclear apocalypse I don't really see the large manufacturers ceasing to exist anytime soon. They have enough capital to invest in development.

"They had electric cars for years." Yeah sure bro! You wanna buy our ugly looking i3? Nah too crazy design do you like the looks of any our 184 diesel models? havent really had much choice for evs

Germany is like Houston but worse...

But on the other side. Evs have an henn and egg problem. People need charging stations. Firms need an incitive to build them.

And I think even hybrid are shitty all around. They create the demand for charging stations without being 100 percent depend on them. So they can be build and get used..

Not electric motorcycles? They are electric AND require less energy to move from point A to B.

They probably require a lot more doctor time to move from point A to point B though.

And? its an environmental initiative. I'm fine with more human risk. Its the greener option.

This is Germany too, so there's already a lot more riders than in the US so drivers are accustomed to see them.

And the subsidized medical system is already subsidizing your bike. Call it an environmental subsidy for your bike if you wish.

(I don't actually know how healthcare works in Germany, not being German, but I assume it's like other first world countries in that it's subsidized by taxpayers).

motorcycle accidents are overwhelmingly caused by car drivers who weren't paying attention. So why would any medical cost be blamed on the motorcyclists?

Cars make everyone require a lot more doctor time in the form of treatments for asthma, bronchitis and obesity. Not to mention in the form of making driving so boring that drivers fill the time with texting and cause accidents, killing cyclists in the process.

I'd like to see them subsidize ebikes (pedelecs) more. Currently you can get a tax break but that's it.

And substantially less safe...

And it'd be safer if more people were subsidized to buy them. Safety in numbers.

And aren't we in a climate crisis? If its a question of environmentalism my 125cc minibike gets 150mpg. Its greener than a Tesla.

Motorcycles will never be as safe as cars, period.

Source: an experienced rider with over 100,000 miles riding all over the USA and teacher of multiple new riders.

Duh, man. Not once did I say they were safer than cars.

> over 100,000 miles riding all over the USA

Yeah that's actually a good argument for not subsidizing them since it encourages non-green behavior—driving all over the country on joy rides.

> Yeah that's actually a good argument for not subsidizing them since it encourages non-green behavior—driving all over the country on joy rides.

More people road-trip in cars than motorcycles.

Even among motorcyclists, in the US it's been more common to transport bikes across the country to attend events like Sturgis, Bikeweek, or to ride "the tail of the dragon", than do the trips on two wheels.

My extensive touring on two wheels is the exception not the norm, it's fairly unusual, uncomfortable, unsafe, expensive, and inconvenient. This activity isn't even a blip on the environmental impact radar, and never will be.

Motorcycles are firmly in recreational use territory, promoting them from an environmental perspective is utterly misguided. People will often be buying them in addition to other more practical and safe vehicles. It's just more consumerism, they'll never represent a bulk of miles traveled nation-wide, but will always cost resources to manufacture.

I grew up in the midwest where there's quite a lot of "lifestyle" bikers, their garage queen bikes are ridden so little you can arbitrage buying barely used bikes from the midwest by selling them on the coasts.

VW doesnt plan to make any.

I would love to be able to buy an electric car here in Montana (US) but how would I charge it? Either way I couldn't afford it. Even at a conservative estimate of 20k that's still too much considering I can go out and buy a used car that gets 20mpg for 5k and keep it for the next 100k miles.

I realize this is a bit off topic but I get so bitter when I heard about other countries converting to electric. I just wish someone would make and sell a reliable electric car in the states for around 10-15k and provide me with enough utility stations to make it practical to use.

May I ask why you wouldn't be able to charge it at home? It is my understanding that most people simply charge their electric cars overnight, much like their phones.

My apartment building does not have, and by my best guess, will never have car chargers in its parking garage.

And I'm lucky enough to have a parking garage. At least ~70% of the people living in my area park on the street, where there are... Also no chargers.

Have you considered asking them if they would install one? They aren't that expensive, only about $1000 bucks, and I think there are some federal subsidies.

With a service like Chargepoint, there is no cost to the landlord at all. They have a brochure you can print out on their website.

Failing that you can park near a regular 120v outlet and use level 1 charging, which fills up most cars in about 8 hours.

> a regular 120v outlet and use level 1 charging, which fills up most cars in about 8 hours

A regular 120V outlet is 15A at best (usually 12A). That's barely enough to charge a PHEV in 8h, let alone a BEV. Practical example [0]:

> connected to a 240V outlet, the onboard 7.7kW charger should take the battery from 0-100% SoC in 2 hours 25 min. (A 120V charge will take a bit longer at just over 16.5 hours.)

[0] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/10/on-the-road-with-audis-...

I'd clarify that regular outlet is _usually_ 15A. 12A is what car will be drawing as this is continuous load (should be 80%, code requirements). Quite often breaker behind that 120V outlet is 20A one.

The federal tax credit ended in tax year 2018. I installed two Open EVSE in my garage, and ran a 100 amp sub-panel. I did all the work myself and was able to claim about $300 of the tax credit; can't claim own labor so it was all materials. Even then, the credit was capped at $1k.

The EVSE run between $500 - $1000. Add in the cost of a residential electrician, and I'm estimating $3k total. If it's commercial, then double that. If you have to trench and do concrete work, double it again. Get into a ROW with other utilities, even worse. It gets expensive really fast.

The level 1 charger for my 24 kW*H Leaf says 24 hours for a full charge. Forget about it for a Tesla.

Perhaps I am in the minority but my home is an apartment complex so I park in the parking lot. There are no chargers in the parking lot.

Either way (I could be wrong) I don't think you can just plug it into a 120V outlet to get a charge.

No thats the biggest problem for most buyers living in apartment buildings in urban areas. It's still quite rare to find chargers in underground parking lots.

That's what prevented me from buying one as well. I didn't want to have to go wait in line at one of the few public chargers in my city.

You can but with a standard 120V (12/15A) outlet you'd spend days charging an EV with a large battery. Anything that takes more than 8-10 hours is not really a feasible option. A 240V outlet can be 32A which would be a lot more reasonable in terms of charging time.

it adds about 5 miles per hour for model 3. So after charging overnight it would be at least 50 miles of range added. And this is enough for many.

Which is still very slow, as I said above. The fact that you can get a tenth of the battery charge after a full night is not fast by any measure. Consider that our driving habits have been formed around getting hundreds of Km/mi worth of range in minutes. And if a gas pump would only fill 6 liters at a time nobody in the world would say “well it’s still more than most people need”.

The conversation completely changes as you're not going to a gas station to fill up, you're parking your car at home or plugging it in while you shop. You have fast charging on the highway which, at least for the more powerful ones, can fill you up to 80% in 40 minutes.

I think that there will be a shift in the provided capabilities of places like apartments in the near-ish future that will address this problem. More people will own electric cars, and either charge them at parking garages at work, and their homes/apartments will be retro-fitted. Probably won't be free, but the removed gas cost should well offset it on an individual level.

You can top up using a 120v wall outlet. People using Tesla cars report around 40-50 km for an 8 hour charge.

I use my 120v outlet in my garage and it keeps the battery charged up enough - granted I'm not maxing out the range every day either. Takes about 13 hours to charge from half way.

Interesting, I didn't know that. WELL perhaps I just need to search for a lot with a 120V outlet and browse for a used electric car. If I can find a lot which I can walk to in a relatively short amount of time from my home, I would be alright with that.

And you're right with not maxing out the range daily - it's bad for the battery. Something like 30/40% to 70/80% SoC range is the best

> I don't think you can just plug it into a 120V outlet to get a charge.

A 120V/15A outlet will deliver 1.8 kW. Assuming "overnight" means 12 hours, you can charge ~21 kWh, about 80 miles in a Model 3. Probably enough to keep it topped off after your daily commute/driving. (Edit: apparently 15A means 12A, so a bit less)

Some employers also offer EV charging spots.

1 The US grid is "in need of improvement" see California

2 Not everyone lives in a house with of street parking

As this is in the context of Montana,

1. not every part of the U.S. grid is in dire need of improvement, most homes have access to 240v most of the time. (with the exception of the 1 state that has assigned fire damages to their utility. And, most vehicles are charged at night, outside of peak demand. (also, the Tesla wall was a technology that further decreased demand on the grid)

2. Most of Montana is going to have off street parking, be it a barn or garage (and with at least 120v) mostly by the necessity that sub zero temperatures ~2 months of the year freezing anti-freeze, batteries -- and that you can't use an ice scraper to scrape off feet of snow.

"most" of the time - I think you don't realise how bad this is compared to say the UK or France or Germany

Sorry, for states other than California, this year, that should say all of the the time; And part of why every house is wired for 240 is because our dryers and hvacs all use 240.

True but the equivalent of that else where is the 415 V cooker circuit.

All the mains sockets in uk houses are 240v - this is whey you never see an electric kettle in US homes

We're really conflating apples and oranges here as the voltage is only half the equation;

By code, US 2 phase (120x2 == 240) is going to be wired with lower gauge wire to provide more overall electricity. Typically, the 240v is going to be capable of providing 600 total amps (though there are cases where 400amp is served); with a typical breaker at 30 or 40 amps. compared to a triple 415 providing 8 or 15amps.

I paid $11k for my used 2015 leaf about 2 years ago. I charge it every other day (90 mile range) by plugging it in at work or at home into a DC charger that’s connected to my dryer outlet.

For these cars they work great but you have to accept that they usually have to be charged every other day.

No offense, but what hypothetical car are you buying for $5K that will last another 100K miles?

You can get used Nissan Leaf's in the price-range you're wanting. In Spokane tho I guess...

https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?dealerTy...

Or used Prius's in Missoula:

https://www.missoulanissan.com/VehicleSearchResults?search=p...

edit: I am genuinely curious about the $5K car good for 100K miles.

I bought a 2007 Rav4 for around $5k in 2017. Had 130k miles on it. Now 2 years later it's at around 210k and still no serious issues. I doubt it's gonna have much trouble going another 20k. I would imagine any Toyota or Honda would be similar, and probably lots of other cars too.

Pretty much any old POS with 100k on it will last to 200k if you change the fluids on some semblance of a schedule. Somewhere north of 200k is where most automatic transmissions wear out.

Toyta Hilux :-)

All sorts of post 2000 cars from reliable brands. Cars last well into 200k miles these days. I drive a 2001 Outback with 198k miles on it. Purchased 5 years ago for ~$3700 and besides brake pads and oil haven't spent any money on it.

This is the biggest barrier to electric IMO. I'm planning on getting a Tesla but it makes absolutely no economic sense.

I feel similarly to you, I really want to switch to an electric car, but when I really look at it for me, the infrastructure is just not there yet. I am hoping in 2-3 years it will be much improved, since so many more electric cars are coming out.

> I realize this is a bit off topic but I get so bitter when I heard about other countries converting to electric.

Which country is converting to electric?

China?

"China Beats U.S. 8-1 When It Comes to Charging Electric Cars"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-10-15/china-ele...

Reminder, for context: the German VAT (effectively, sales tax) rate is 19%.

Terrible. Horribly ineffective for co2 reduction, but politically palatable by the upper class because they'll be the ones most benefiting from it.

:( They give u 4k on a 32k car, but they wont give it to a 4k car from china

That 4k chineese car is more of a burden than a gift. For once, I agree with the government subsidies.

I don't know anything about Germany but back in New York (the city), anything that has mass and occupies space is a burden. The rent is high and space is tight.

I didn't even own a desktop computer because I couldn't justify the space a dedicated computer space takes.

Thus, given the golf carts can't drive everywhere, you pretty much need a second car so I kind of agree with you. That being said, wasn't there some noise about free public transit? Maybe a small EV (not necessarily from China PR) is good enough in a pinch if the public transit is free of cost and reliable?

You're assuming the majority of people are rational. Cars are basically a religion in germany (with beer and football). You can compare that to the 2nd amendment in the US.

Are the Chinese EV golf carts I mean cars allowed in Germany? I thought their safety requirements were pretty tight. I can’t imagine some of them making it on the autobahn.

Cannot be more of a death trap than a Renault Twizzy which I see quite often around the city, or any motorcycle for that matter. As long as they don't market it as a normal car, I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed.

Motocycles require a different driving license in Germany, which is harder to get and for the powerful motorcycles has stricter age requirements (24 if you want >95 horsepower)

>more of a death trap than a Renault Twizzy

Are you referring to it as a death trap based on it's crash test performance or solely on the looks?

A Twizy is not a car legally. It's a L7e Leichtkraftfahrzeug which means it doesn't have to meet safety standards.

It is possible to make a safe lightweight car. DLR is proving it with their research.

link? The article doesn't mention anything about this.

If the chinese car meets the european standards (crash test etc) you will get the subsidy.

> The German government and car industry have agreed to increase joint subsidies for the purchase of electric cars on the same day automobile giant Volkswagen began production of a new all-electric vehicle.

The way that company fucks Germany over and over is truly remarkable. Paid no penalties for the whole Dieselgate in Germany, now after all that they let the taxpayer fund their infrastructure. I bet their solution won't be compatible with Tesla.

Edit: Okay, charging system seems to be compatible, I got angry over the first part.

What do you mean by "fucks over"? People want to reduce CO2, they want a greener Germany, a greener world and more importantly reach the climate agreement. Subsidizing electric cars is one step towards it.

Yes, but that could have been done in this form earlier, and not suspiciously close to VW's EVs' release date.

Since half of the money come from automotive, they were involved in making that arrangement, too. It's quite possible that some VW managers delayed the process for a few weeks to get it all lined up.

> People want to reduce CO2, they want a greener Germany, a greener world and more importantly reach the climate agreement. Subsidizing electric cars is one step towards it.

They could have done that for years, but it happens the day Volkswagen decides to finally build them.

No disagreement there, but this should have happened over a decade ago.

Instead, we got DieselGate, not just one, but at this point, several of them [0] and the responsible parties, even government agencies who knew but tried to hide it, just shrug their shoulders and nothing changes.

Now they can celebrate themselves for putting EV on their agenda when everybody else is already miles ahead. Which is a common theme with German politics and any kind of tech innovation [1]

[0] https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2019/10/abgase-dieselsk...

[1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-neuland-...

> German politics and any kind of tech innovation

I came to believe that German politics still associates "high tech" with the cog wheel: more cog wheels, more tech.

Since that doesn't apply to IT, it completely falls by the wayside. And since EVs have less of them than an ICE car, they're also lower tech than regular cars.

So far that's the only way I could make sense of it all.

That would also explain the tendency to still bet on "rare metals" aka copper as a transmission medium for the Internet.

I think that has more to do with Projekt Opal by the Bundespost (see https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Glasfaser-in-ihrem-Lauf... from 2001): An early fiber network project that tanked and cut off entire villages from any newer technology than 33.6kbps modems for a decade or so.

Related to that, it surprised me how spotty the Internet was when I drove from Salzburg all the way to Strasbourg via Karlsruhe a few weeks ago (my gf who was riding shotgun used a more explicit word to describe it). Supposedely those are the best developed regions of Germany (we passed close to Munich and Stuttgart, i.e. the hometowns of BMW and Merecedes). The highway itself (the A8) is in need of further improvements especially the part between Salzburg and Munich.

The money put in subsidizing electric vehicles is more well spend in public transportation. An 30 electric cars are not as green as a single bus.

Subsidizing public transportation will never happen at scale in Germany, this piece should be proof enough for that.

A better way is to put a big tax on CO2 making driving ICE cars less attractive. They can then use the money from this tax to build bike paths and give tax breaks for electric vehicles. Preferably bicycles and light vehicles which use less resources to produce and operate.

Why not? There are standardized ways to charge your car.

Or as someone else put it: "If you want to understand German politics, you have to know that the German government is the political arm of the German car industry"

And here a reminder to the "Abwrackprämine" the scrappage program from 2009 to help the automotive industry through the last financial crisis. Different to the programs in other countries, the German scrappage program coincidentally didnt require the new car to meet any modern emission standards.

> I bet their solution won't be compatible with Tesla.

It's a standard charger system that I've seen all kinds of cars (incl. Teslas) connected to. Also: Renaults, VWs, BMWs, Mitsubishis.

>> on the same day automobile giant Volkswagen began production of a new all-electric vehicle.

> The way that company fucks Germany over and over is truly remarkable.

Their political reach certainly is remarkable. I quipped that there will be legal roadblocks for autonomous cars in Germany that "magically" disappear each time a German car maker solves the technical issues that prevents them from going to market with it now.

> Paid no penalties for the whole Dieselgate in Germany

Some of that is blatant protectionism (which applies even when banks defraud the federal government by scheming to recoup taxes they never paid: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/14/cum-ex-german-tax-case-could...), but the other part of no-to-low penalties in Germany compared to certain other countries is due to differences in the legal systems.

Germany first had to establish a process for something akin to class action lawsuits, because that didn't exist here. That was done in response to the Dieselgate thing.

Even with that in place, you won't see the huge sums in Germany that you see in the US as punitive damages (doubling or tripling the value "because") don't exist, either (with no intent to change that): There's potentially a legal penalty and there's damages - for which actual damage needs to be proven.

Short term, Tesla gets the largest benefit from this, as they are delivering the Model 3 in numbers already and the Model 3 would qualify (though not for the full amount, as this is only for cars less than 40000€). Behind that though, VW is to gain a lot from it too for certain.

> Paid no penalties for the whole Dieselgate in Germany,

German prosecutors have charged VW's former CEO and some other executives [1]. I think it's very rare for bigwigs to be held personally responsible for pollution anywhere in the world so I see this as a refreshing change. The company itself paid a fine in Germany (one billion, I think) and has paid fines in other countries, as well as recalling a lot of cars.

As far as government support goes, well, Tesla made a ton of money from selling pollution permits and I think their car prices were also directly subsidised. I'm sure the big Chinese EV manufacturers were supported at crucial times as well. Industrial policy can be corrupt but it is a necessary part of a big, national or international level effort and I don't think there is any point in pretending otherwise.

[1] https://apnews.com/faeff4b8855c4b0daf538599ae3f9db2

VW penalties:

- 5 million, the maximum for this misdemeanor "Ordnungswidrigkeit",

- 995 million levy of infringer's profits.

Given that they couldn't have sold their cars if the real emission values would have been known that number is ridiculously low (we are talking about 10 million cars sold between 2007 and 2015).

Now the article mentions 3.5 billion will be invested in electric vehicle infrastructure subsidies.

I doubt this is going to do anything.

About 50% of the population in Germany are renters, not owners. And for the other 50% owners, many just own a unit in a multi family building, not the whole property.

For manyyyyy of these people there simply is no option to conveniently fast charge their electric vehicle at home. No renter will want to invest in a pricey wallbox at a property that they don't own - even if the landlord would allow such a wallbox to be installed (most don't want any modifications to their building). And for the apartment/unit owners, a German court has decided that all the other unit owners must agree to such a wallbox being installed, so that's another obstacle.

Solution to these problems will come. Its a chicken & egg problem. I live in a flat in London and thinking of similar issues with electric cars. Maybe 20min supercharging every couple of weeks is enough for my weekend driving. I'm hoping soon every lamp post will have a charging plug.

> I'm hoping soon every lamp post will have a charging plug.

I don't see any major city doing that anytime soon. The grid is not ready, power plants are not ready, it would cost billions to rewire everything, especially in old European towns. And even more for germany since they're shutting down coal and nuclear right now. It's not a big issue though, we should focus on getting rid of personal cars and that's something Berlin is getting slightly better at by the day.

Firstly, when they add these types of charging stations, they will make the grid ready.

Secondly, grid has a lot of capacity. Its like motorways, most of the time its under utilised. Only during peak time that it is full capacity. Think of the grid in a similar way. Its mostly under utilised except for peak time. All we need to do is make use of it outside peak time (with batteries) and suddenly we have double or triple the capacity.

What about all the people getting from/to work roughly at the same time and plugging their cars. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup for example, and that's just tea pots

> All we need to do is make use of it outside peak time

Seems like a huge thing to overcome to me.

Just because they plug in at the same time doesn't mean they all need to draw power. In fact a lot of chargers now are set to charge late at night to take advantage of the lower off-peak prices.

> grid is not ready,

The UK National Grid says otherwise.

See https://www.carbonbrief.org/rise-uk-electric-vehicles-nation... for instance.

> And for the apartment/unit owners, a German court has decided that all the other unit owners must agree to such a wallbox being installed, so that's another obstacle.

Laws can be changed.

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