Germany launches a plan to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2020

Saturday, August 22, 2009

From an article in French here from La Presse. Personally I think one million is a vast underestimation of how many electric cars will be on the road by then, since starting as soon as next year cars like the Nissan Leaf (and hopefully the Norwegian Think City as well) will be available and just as cheap as gasoline-powered cars.


Germany on Wednesday launched a campaign to put one million electric vehicles on the nation's highways by 2020, giving priority to the development of new batteries while it tries to position itself as the leader in this sector.

(note: nothing is more important than further refining battery technology so this is a good thing - at the moment electric vehicles are quite attractive, but with further refinements in battery technology there will eventually be simply no reason to use a gasoline-powered car)

The German government expects to spend $180 million CDN in eight regions of the country to study the best method to introduce these vehicles. Some $266 million CDN will also be spent to develop the batteries that fuel electric vehicles, making their production a national priority and ensuring that German engineers are familiar with the technology.

The first electric vehicles should be available on the market in 2012, but no measure has been announced to give an incentive to customers to buy them.



In other news, Norway's Think expects to finalize their decision on a state within the US to build their cars within the next 30 to 45 days.

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