Poll: In Germany, What Percent Of Automobiles Are EVs? -- June 27, 2016

From IER:

Electric car apologist websites were atwitter this week when it was misreported that Germany would mandate the sale of 100 percent electric vehicles by 2030.

A Germany official, Deputy Economy Minister Rainer Baake, said “Fact is there’s been no reduction at all in CO2 emissions by transport since 1990,” at a Tagesspiegel newspaper climate forum in Berlin.

“We don’t have any answers to cut truck emissions right now but we do have answers for cars.” Germany has pledged to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 and it is discussing banning electric gas-powered vehicles and mandating all electric cars by 2030 to meet that goal. It takes about 20 years to turn over the vehicle fleet.

Other countries such as India, the Netherlands, and Norway also may be considering more aggressive electric car policies to try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Last December, Germany joined the International Zero-Emission Vehicle Alliance, whose mission is to make passenger vehicles carbon dioxide emission-free by 2050.

Germany’s Environment Ministry stated that the country’s transport industry is lagging behind in its plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions with current carbon dioxide emissions levels virtually unchanged from the 1990s. In order to conform, Germany announced a new program to accelerate the adoption of electric cars by providing a discount of €4,000 for electric vehicles with a starting price of less than €60,000 and 3,000 Euros for hybrids beginning mid-May 2016 for a total of 400,000 vehicles. The promotion will end in 2020.

For a total of 400,000 vehicles. Hmmm.

I was always under the impression that the Germans were really moving forward with cutting CO2 emissions -- but apparently their emissions rules have remained "virtually" unchanged since Algore first hit the "global warming" stage, 1994 or thereabouts.

The Germans love their automobiles. 

So, that begs the question. What percent of automobiles in Germany are EVs? See poll at the right. Answer is at the link. 

By the way, "20 years to turn over the vehicle fleet." It should be noted that when writers talk about human generations, a human generation is defined as "20 years" (at least according to one source). So, to vary the way writers discuss time, just as ten years can be referred to as a decade, twenty years can be referred to as one (human) generation.