Germany plans to force all companies that operate gas stations in the country to also provide charging points for electric vehicles in all locations. As a measure, this makes a lot of sense, because there would be more chargers for people to use, plus the fact that filling stations are also already conveniently placed along major transit routes.

The goal of this measure is to increase the demand for electric vehicles, in conjunction with a €6,000 subsidy towards the purchase of a brand new EV (that costs less than €40,000 ($45,400). Reuters quotes energy storage specialist The Mobility House as stating

‘ It’s a very clear commitment to battery-powered vehicles and establishes electric mobility as a technology of the future. Internationally this puts Germany in the leading group of battery electric vehicle support. ‘

Right now, Germany has just under 28,000 charging stations scattered across its territory, but most of them don’t offer fast charging capability. In order to incentivize the purchase of more EVs, the country needs at least 70,000 statios of which at least 7,000 need to have rapid charging.

Back in 2019, Angela Merkel, Cermany’s Chancellor, announced a goal of having as many as one million charging stations across the country by the year 2030, so putting them in gas stations makes a lot of sense.

Why is Germany enforcing these measures? Well, the source article reports that only 3.3 percent of all new cars registered in may were electric (that’s just 5,578 out of 168,148 new car registrations over the course of that month). The percentage is improving, though, because in 2019 only 1.8 percent of new cars sold in Germany were electric.

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And with these new measures in place, which are part of a larger €130- ($146-) billion economic recovery plan (i.e. the German government will pay for it or at least contribute, it's not really clear at this point), in conjunction with the launch of more and more genuinely good electric vehicles, will ensure their popularity will keep increasing.

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