Europe's shift to electric vehicles picking up despite recession

FRANKFURT－The coronavirus has cancelled business plans all over the world but Europe's push into electric cars isn't one of them. Sales of battery-powered and hybrid cars have held up better than the overall market amid a deeply painful recession, mainly thanks to the action of governments.

The 27-country European Union is moving ahead with a major shift in transportation as part of the bloc's efforts against climate change. Under regulatory pressure, carmakers are rolling out a slew of new electric models so they can meet tougher limits on greenhouse gases that come into full force in 2021.

Battery-only models are becoming more affordable, especially as sales are supported by substantial government subsidies. As sales of internal combustion cars have fallen, the demand for battery-only cars and hybrids that combine electric motors with conventional engines has been stable or even increased, recent statistics show. By contrast, electric car adoption is moving more slowly in the US due to regulatory uncertainty. The market share of battery and hybrid vehicles rose sharply across major European markets during the first half of 2020, even as the outbreak closed showrooms in March and April. Germany rose to 8.4 percent, from 3.4 percent in 2019, as overall sales of all cars slumped 35 percent. France saw the share of plug-in vehicles jump to 9 percent from 2.5 percent. Sweden saw a surge to 25 percent, from 10 percent.

One of the pandemic car buyers was Frank Schendel, a dentist from a small town outside the Bavarian city of Augsburg. In May he bought a battery-powered Hyundai Kona Elektro, a compact SUV-style hatchback. He had been impressed by a Tesla he rented while on vacation for a couple of days.

"My son is getting his driver's license at the moment, and a Tesla is bit too expensive and too fast, so I was glad to discover the Hyundai Kona," he said. He hasn't driven his 10-yearold Mercedes E-Class station wagon since. "It's fun, fast and quiet, technologically up to date," said Schende l,52. "We drive the Kona everywhere: 500 kilometers to visit grandma, grocery shopping. We do every trip with the Kona."

The 64 kilowatt-hour battery has a range of up to 484 km, enough to reach grandma with just one stop at a highway charging station. Electric car buyers are being attracted by large government incentives. Under the German government's latest stimulus package, for example, an electric car with a price tag under 40,000 euros ($45,000) is eligible for a 9,000-euro incentive; 3,000 euros of that will be paid by the manufacturer.

Car buyers now have 70 different battery and hybrid models to choose from, with prices starting below 20,000 euros including the Seat Mii, the Renault Twingo ZE, and the Skoda CITIGOe IV. Volkswagen says it will start delivering its ID.3 battery hatchback by the end of 2020, starting under 30,000 euros.

"The demand is growing fast, very fast," said Juergen Sangl, an auto dealer in the town of Landsberg am Lech who sold Schendel his Kona. Sangl decided in 2016 to anticipate the trend and focus on electrics, which are 90 percent of his business.

"It has gone the way I suspected it would－first a trickle, now a flood," he said. Beyond the incentives, customers have found electric cars more attractive now ranges exceed 300 km on a charge.

Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

AP