Bad news for electromobility: fewer and fewer Germans are considering an electric car when buying their next car. Only 17 percent said this in a current Allensbach survey commissioned by the German Academy of Engineering Sciences (acatech). This is the third decline in a row. In 2021 it was 24 percent. According to Allensbach and acatech, a central reason could be a lack of or poor information.
There are significant acceptance problems, said Renate Töpfer from Allensbach. Parts of the population are extremely reserved about electromobility. The most important points of criticism are the costs, concerns about the range being too short and doubts about whether electric cars are really more environmentally friendly. “Overall, you can see that the reservations are remarkably stable,” said Töpfer. Only a part of the population has saved the changes in technology over the past few years.
Information from regular table discussions
This could also be due to how people get information about electric cars. Conversations with friends and colleagues are cited as the most common source, followed by television and people who own electric cars. In this context, Acatech President Thomas Weber spoke of information based on regular discussions. Instead, fact-based information is needed. Many things that are associated with reservations are improving or have already improved. This also needs to be communicated more strongly.
An example of this is the doubts mentioned by 60 percent of those surveyed about the environmental friendliness of electromobility. Weber has a very clear position on this: today, electric cars already have a clearly better CO2 balance, even if you take into account the production of the battery. And if the electricity mix improves, these values would get even better. In this context, his colleague in the presidential office, Jan Wörner, complained about reports that it takes 150,000 kilometers for an electric car to be worthwhile for the environment. One can easily calculate that this is not the case.
Unfaithful customers
The survey also brings bad news for the German auto industry. When asked where particularly good electric cars are built, China was mentioned most frequently at 29 percent. Germany is only in second place with 20 percent. However, that is still much better than the home of the most prominent electric car manufacturer Tesla: The USA only comes in fifth place with nine percent of mentions – still behind Japan and Korea.
The local manufacturers can hardly rely on the loyalty of German customers. Only 21 percent said that they would prefer German models even if they were slightly more expensive.
ADAC: Electric cars beat combustion engines when it comes to breakdown statistics
However, there is at least one good news for electromobility: in the current breakdown statistics from the ADAC, three-year-old electric cars beat combustion engines of the same age by far. Based on the 3.5 million calls made by its breakdown assistants, the traffic club came to 2.8 breakdowns per 1,000 electric vehicles. That wasn’t even half as many as for combustion engines of the same age with a value of 6.4. The ADAC even noted a growing lead for electric cars in recent years. However, the evaluation does not take differences in driving performance into account; these could be responsible for part of the electric car’s lead.
