One million electric vehicles will be on Germany's roads in 2022 if the latest predictions of the National Platform for Electromobility are to be believed. The Federal Government's aim is to have seven to ten million registered electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Current figures suggest that this trend is well underway. In 2020, the number of newly registered electric cars on the road tripled according to Federal Motor Transport Authority figures: boosted by state subsidies and new models, 194,000 purely battery-driven cars were registered, accounting for seven per cent of all new car registrations. In the first half of 2021, there were already 149,000 new purely battery-driven cars and 164,000 plug-in hybrids.
These new cars need very little doing to them at the moment, but car owners will soon be asking garages to carry out repairs and routine checks. But opinions are divided on this point. ‘I see a clear change coming our way,’ says Jeffrey Kilian, Chair of the Federal Trade Group of Independent Garages, part of the Central Association of the German Motor Vehicle Industry (ZDK). And the industry needs to thoroughly prepare for this change. ‘But there are still many garages resisting this change or finding it overwhelming’, says Kilian, who owns the independent garage Auto Kilian (formerly Schäfer & Schmidt) and employs eight members of staff. Many still need to venture beyond their comfort zone, build up their expertise, acquire new technology and equipment and improve their networking.
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