German Bundestag passes Electromobility Act

Electromobility Act adopted

On 5 March 2015, the Federal government’s draft act on prioritizing the use of electrically powered vehicles, the Electromobility Act (Electromobilitätsgesetz – EmoG) was adopted by the German parliament (Bundestag) in its 91st session with votes from the CDU/CSU and SPD parliamentary groups. The Act aims to apply certain privileges to promote the use of electrically powered vehicles in road traffic and establishes certain powers for the introduction of special identification for privileged, electrically powered vehicles and of specific privileges for these vehicles in road traffic.

What the Elecromobility Act contains

The new Act creates the framework for specific privileges, defines the vehicles to which these privileges are to apply and creates the relevant powers for granting them. For this reason, the Federal government’s draft law for the Electromobility Act consists of a multi-layered regulatory initiative that must be considered as a whole.

Apart from the Electromobility Act, this primarily includes an ordinance amending the German Road Traffic Code (Straßenverkehrsordnung – StVO), the German Vehicle Registration Code (Fahrzeug-Zulassungsverordnung) and the Scale of Fees and Charges for Road Traffic Measures (Gebührenordnung für Maßnahmen im Straßenverkehr). Final-ly, the legislative initiative also includes a draft amendment of the administrative provisions relating to the German Road Traffic Code (StVO). The administrative provisions set out the specific requirements by which the city and municipal authorities are to implement the privileges.

There has essentially been no change in the key points of the draft since it was passed by the German cabinet on 24 September 2014 (possible link here to this News & Views article). The scope of the Electromobility Act applies to all passenger vehicles, light delivery vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes and light two, three and four-wheeled vehicles if they contain one of the three privileged drive systems: the pure battery electric, electric fuel-cell and plug-in hybrid drive systems. The privileged vehicles will receive a new registration letter “E” to the right of the registration number and a new blue registration sticker will be introduced for electric vehicles registered abroad. The Electromobility Act and the amending ordinance implementing it provide for privileges such as the creation of special parking areas, privileged parking charges, the authorized use of bus lanes and traffic prohibition exemptions. As the city and municipal authorities will be responsible for actually implementing these privileges, however, it is they on whom the success of this initiative by the German government ultimately rests. A first evaluation of the initiative will therefore only be possible in a few months.

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