Tesla has confirmed that following the recent price drops, both Model 3 and Model Y will now benefit from the full ~$7,000 EV subsidy in Germany for the first time.
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Tesla delivered a record number of vehicles during the first quarter of 2017 and while the company doesn’t break down the deliveries per region, we are starting to get an idea of which markets helped achieve the result with registration numbers.
Germany was a great contributor with a 157% increase in deliveries year-over-year during the first quarter.
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German government officials most often use German cars as their official vehicles since the German auto industry is one of the country’s most important industries and a source of national pride. That’s why it made the national news this week when the German Environment Minister for North Rhine-Westphalia bought a Tesla Model S as his official car.
The fact that it’s an American car isn’t the main focus. The 110,340 euros ($115,000) price tag is not helping public opinion, as the vehicle has been ordered with public money through the Ministry of the Environment.
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A few weeks ago, Germany officially announced a new incentive and investment program to accelerate the adoption of electric cars in the country. The most important incentive is a €4,000 discount at the purchase of an electric vehicle, but it is capped to vehicles with a starting price of less than €60,000.
Fast-forward to this week, Tesla is now claiming that the government and German automakers purposely included this base price restriction to exclude Tesla from the program. In its official response on its German website, Tesla writes:
“[the plan] was drawn up jointly with the Chairman of the German automobile manufacturers and the relevant ministries.
Unfortunately, it was decided that Model S and Model X customers wouldn’t benefit from this promotion, because what they call ‘premium’ is linked to an arbitrary price limit. This part of the program is obviously directed against Tesla.”
Tesla is right about the EV plan having been negotiated with German auto industry. Even German Chancellor Merkel was directly involved in the negotiations with executives from BMW, Mercedes-maker Daimler and Volkswagen.
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