Germany must invest heavily to keep up in EVs: Merkel

Germany and its auto industry must invest heavily to ensure it is not left behind by the shift to electric cars, chancellor Angela Merkel says.
Her plea came this week as she laid a foundation stone for a new battery factory for Daimler unit Accumotive.

“We need long-term horizons and companies that invest in the future,” Merkel says. “It is important that electric mobility is ready for the market as quickly as possible.”

While Germany’s automakers are ramping up production of electric cars, most batteries they use are made in Asia, prompting fears Germany could lose its leadership in the core EV technology of the future, reports Reuters.

Merkel came under fire this month when she admitted Germany was likely to miss the government’s target of bringing one million EVs on to the roads by the end of the decade.

Merkel says new technologies sometimes take time to get off the ground and end up being exploited by those other than their original inventors, citing the example of German engineer Konrad Zuse, who developed the first programmable computer in 1941. “This should be a lesson for technology policy. We don’t want to experience that again.”

In March, Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler said it was speeding up its electric car programme, aiming to bring more than 10 new models to market by 2022 through 10 billion euros (NZ$16 billion) of investment.

Daimler is investing around 500 million euros (NZ$800 million) in its second factory for lithium batteries, that should be operational within a year, quadrupling production.

“The auto industry faces a fundamental transformation. Technical change cannot be stopped, with or without the German car industry and I think it would be better with us,” says Daimler chief executive officer Deiter Zetsche.

The Daimler factory still relies on imported battery cells, and Merkel says Germany should do more in that area, reports Reuters. She says the German government is investing 35 million euros (NZ$56 million) in battery research and is keen to build clusters of expertise. “If we are involved in research and in prototypes, there is a better chance of bringing the production of the next generation of cells to Europe or to Germany.”

Merkel says she has been briefed about the latest lithium cells which could allow cars to travel up to 1000 kilometres without needing to be recharged – a major advance from the current operating range of 200-300km.