Germany ranks midfield in e-mobility preparedness among leading European countries

For a new pan-European report on e-mobility, the PwC consultancy division Strategy& surveyed 4,600 end consumers from seven countries – Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and Spain. According to Strategy&’s “eReadiness Study 2022”, the share of electric vehicle (EV) owners continued to grow as of last year, reaching 6 percent, up two percentage points compared to 2021. Some 55 percent said they intended to buy an EV in the next two years. EV owners are mainly high-income, middle-aged males living in city centres with access to private parking spaces, the report found. 63 percent of respondents are interested in electric cars and want to buy one in the next five years. Norway stands out as the most prepared country for e-mobility, while Germany ranks midfield with a relatively strong performance in the area of government incentives and increasing customer demands for EVs, the report noted. Spain and Italy registered the lowest score, mainly due to the lack of infrastructure. France has an average level of EV infrastructure which, along with a higher level of incentives, could result in a larger uptake of electric cars. The UK also shows a good level of consumer demand sustained by an EV infrastructure but limited incentives for consumer EV sales. Switzerland ranks second in the eReadiness index, with a high level of demand supported by a solid EV infrastructure.

Germany has just decided to reduce support for EVs and increasingly limiting subsidies to fully electric cars and ending them for plug-in hybrids. The Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) recently said that a quarter more electric cars were registered in Germany in the first half of 2022 than in the same period last year.