The first major charging station suppliers have announced massive price increases for January 2023. A price increase of up to 27% can be expected. “Unless politicians act as quickly as possible, Germany will ruin the electric transition. The prices of electric cars and the associated maintenance costs continue to rise, making the switch to electromobility increasingly unattractive,” emphasizes Axel Schäfer, CEO of the Federal Association of Business Mobility (BBM).
Due to the energy crisis and the significant increase in energy prices, suppliers of charging stations are also forced to raise prices. Just recently, EnBW announced a price increase of up to 27% from mid-January 2023. According to the BBM, other suppliers will almost certainly follow.
Axel Schäfer has a clear opinion: “Due to the higher electricity costs in relation to the capped subsidy amounts up to the abolition of the subsidy for companies, the attractiveness of electric vehicles is decreasing.” the choice of electromobility is the total operating costs, according to Schäfer. “It is absurd what politicians are doing in the face of electromobility which is so often invoked as necessary.”
Mobility association calls for swift political action. A brake on the price of electricity must also be applied to the charging infrastructure, otherwise the BBM sees the trend reversal in mobility at risk. Furthermore, the regulations for support measures have to be changed again. Businesses should not be excluded from funding. “Currently, the economic arguments ‘in favor of electromobility’ are disappearing massively. This will certainly mean that companies initially refrain from electrification. In the current situation, fewer and fewer companies can afford to accept the additional costs for sustainability arguments. Picture or not,” sums up Marc-Oliver Prinzing, CEO. (awm)
