The German government has tabled plans to have a million electric cars zipping around the country by 2020, offering sweeteners to jumpstart car makers like BMW and Volkswagen into action.
'It is the federal government's aim that by 2020, there will be a million electric cars on Germany's streets,' said a draft of the 'national electro-mobility plan' obtained by the AFP news agency.
Germany plans to spark development of electric cars by offering incentives for research in area such as batteries and recharging systems, as it battles to catch up with Asian firms which have zoomed ahead of their German rivals.
The plan added that the government was 'examining an incentive programme for the purchase of 100,000 electric cars,' though it did not give details.
Environmental organisations had called for a subsidy of around €5,000 for consumers to buy electric cars, along the lines of a €5 billion scrappage scheme to support the traditional car industry.
German luxury car maker BMW has already teamed up with car parts maker Bosch and its Korean partner Samsung to supply lithium-ion batteries for a future electric city car. Volkswagen hopes to turn out its first all-electric car in 2013, VW head Martin Winterkorn said in July. Meanwhile, Daimler launched its first hybrid model earlier in June, almost 10 years after the market leader, Japan's Toyota
