Electromobility gains momentum

 

Germany wants to use innovative vehicles and intelligent concepts to become the lead market.

 

Turning the switch. E-cars from Germany are upping the pace. “Cars have been around for nearly 130 years. Today is the beginning of a new era,” announced BMW’s CEO Norbert Reithofer in summer 2013, as he launched a big show in New York to unveil the i3, the Bavarian auto manufacturer’s first electric car. At the same time, BMW was also presenting this nippy 
little electric car, which is made largely of carbon, on two other continents, in London and Beijing. The i8 electric sports car 
will follow this year. This shows that the 
i models are not just special-purpose ve­­hicles, simply replacing the traditional combustion engine with an electric drive. The corporation has realigned its business. No other car maker is as committed to electromobility as BMW. The number one among the world’s premium manufacturers aims to position itself early in the market of the future. The days when driving pleasure 
and sustainability were conflicting aims 
are long gone for BMW’s designers. Despite the high price and a waiting time of at least six months, the customers are queuing 
up. At end of 2013 Volkswagen, the world’s leading automotive group, was also using all its muscle to successfully launch a small e-mobile called the e-up. An electrified version of the Golf, Germany’s best-selling car, is to follow soon. “Sixteen more new elec­trified production models will follow by the end of 2014. Demand is growing noticeably,” reports Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn, Managing Director for Technology and Environment at the Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA).

 

At least the Federal Government’s target, reiterated in the new coalition agreement, of getting a million electric cars onto the road by 2020 isn’t looking too remote in the wake of recent developments. Even so, the market penetration of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids has been making much faster progress in Japan, the USA and France. Nevertheless, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel is still confident: “Our targets are feasible,” she said in 2013 at an international conference called Electromobility Going Global.

Germany’s aim, the Federal Chancellor said, was to become the lead market and the leading provider in electromobility. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of the cult Tesla brand, recently stressed how attractive the German market was for international manu­facturers. “We are investing a lot of money in Germany,” promised the Californian electric car pioneer. “Germany is a country that appreciates automotive technology and is therefore very important to us. It’s a crucial step for Tesla that the Model S is so well received by customers in Germany.”

Electromobility is also becoming a central element in the future of urban transport worldwide. Many countries are working on transport strategies to reduce noise and pollution burdens. The Federal Government is supporting German car makers, automotive suppliers and scientific and research establishments in the field of electromobility, also on foreign markets. Germany’s Embassy in Lisbon became the first German diplomatic mission abroad to begin operating an electric-powered official car.

 

However, e-mobility is not limited to cars. The upward trend is also steep for electric bicycles. Initially laughed at as “grannymobiles”, they are now booming. There are already more than a million e-bikes on Germany’s roads, and their sales are showing double-digit growth. People who have tried them out are reluctant to go back to a regular bike. So progress is being made. Yet much remains to be done – for example, in building a network of charging stations. But here, too, more and more creative proposals are being made. A concept floated by ubitricity, a Berlin-based start-up, for example, is as tempting as it is cheap. Their idea is to charge up your car at a street light. Only a few minor adjustments are needed to install a system socket into a street lamp; then all you need is a special charging cable to tap the mast and be billed for the power you use. Standard charging stations can easily cost 10,000 euros, while a street light can be converted for less than 500 euros. The first car-charging street light has already been installed in Berlin: just outside the offices of the VDA. Nationwide, about 200,000 masts are potentially suitable for this sol­ution. There are plans to turn up to 1,000 of them into “filling stations” in Berlin in the near future.

Alongside Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria/Saxony and Hanover, Berlin is a so-called “shop-window region” for electromobility. These regions are being subsidized to the tune of around 100 million euros. Berlin in particular is rather like a magnifying glass indicating the direction we might be heading. Nowhere in Germany are there more practical projects for developing electro­mobility than here. The Berlin Agency for Electromobility (eMO) has registered about 1,200 such projects. eMO head Gernot Lobenberg is absolutely convinced: “Electromobility is coming, even if many people are still sceptical.”

 

Electric vehicles belonging to Deutsche Bahn (Germany’s rail company) and other car-sharing firms are also a common sight in cities. In future, Daimler Mobility Ser­vices GmbH (car2go and moovel) and Deutsche Bahn (Flinkster and Call a Bike) want to cooperate to link up their car-sharing operations (including bicycles). This could create an almost nationwide vehicle-sharing service with more than 6,600 cars and 8,500 bicycles. Networking is also 
the keyword for Christian Fahner of Ostprignitz-Ruppin Technology and Business Incubator, where he runs a project called Electromobility in Rural Areas. He says there are significant opportunities outside cities, where the public transport system is patchy. If the Federal Government were now to switch to electric vehicles, as promised in the coalition agreement, this would send a clear message and bring the aim of becoming the “lead market and leading provider in electromobility” that much closer.