A holding period of six months is sufficient to collect the e-car premium. Resourceful traders take advantage of that.
Many government sponsored E-cars apparently leave Germany a few months after the bonus application. An investigation of Center of Automotive Management (CAM) sees tricky dealers at work and criticizes the legislator. Loopholes in the funding conditions allow tricksters to make legal profits at taxpayer expense.
A fifth of the cars are gone
While 236.695 purely electric cars were newly registered in Germany in the first nine months of last year, the number in Germany increased by only 207.435 vehicles. Accordingly, around 29.260 electric cars are missing from the fleet - a loss of 12,4 percent. According to the study, random samples show even greater discrepancies among some manufacturers: At Tesla, around 4.800 of the 26.000 newly registered cars are missing – a rate of 18,5 percent. At BMW, this value is even 20,6 percent.
In many cases, according to CAM's assessment, there could be an undesirable but legal business model behind this. A dealer leases or sells an e-car and collects the state share of the subsidy of 6.000 euros. After six months, the lessee returns the car, which is then sold abroad as a young used vehicle. This is legal, as according to the funding guidelines, only a minimum holding period of six months has to be observed in order to receive the environmental bonus. Some car dealers also aggressively advertise this model – and promise customers that they can drive an e-car at almost zero cost. The general public pays the costs in the form of grants.
Denmark receives its e-car bonus differently
According to the experts, resale abroad is worthwhile despite the loss in value due to the level of funding and the short minimum holding period. Some dealers have specialized in reselling used electric vehicles abroad at a profit after six months. In Denmark, for example, there is no luxury tax on registration for used electric vehicles with a mileage of more than 6.000 kilometers, which creates high demand and high prices for young used electric vehicles.
"The current funding framework for electromobility leads to undesirable side effects and considerable market distortions," explains CAM manager Stefan Bratzel. According to his estimates, in 2021 alone, up to 240 million euros in state subsidies for purely electric vehicles will not have been used as intended. This could prevent an increase in the minimum holding period to two to three years. According to media reports, the Federal Ministry of Economics is now pursuing similar plans.