The German government announced on Wednesday a subsidy plan boosting electric car sales to give a jolt to sluggish growth in the sector.
Car buyers will receive 4,000 euros (4,526 U.S. dollars) when they choose a purely electric vehicle and 3,000 euros for a plug-in hybrid, said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
A total subvention cost of 1.2 billion euros is to be shared 50-50 between the public purse and carmakers. The money will be disbursed on the principle "first come, first served" for cars with a net list price of maximum 60,000 euros.
The subsidy plan, which starts in May and is expected to run until 2019 at the latest, aims to help Germany approach its goal of putting one million zero-emission cars on the road by 2020, up from just 25,500 pure electric vehicles and 130,000 hybrids now out of Germany's 45 million cars.
So far, German car giants Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW have reportedly discussed the program with the government. The German government has budgeted another 300 million euros to speed up building the network of charging stations for electric cars. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars)
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