BERLIN, July 29 (UPI) -- Germany, the grand car nation, is lagging behind when it comes to designing tomorrow's green cars.
In a bid to meet climate protection targets and reduce dependency on oil imports, the German government wants to have 1 million electric cars cruising the country's Autobahn highways by 2020.
So far, however, the powerful German car industry -- which features companies such as Daimler (the owners of Mercedes-Benz), BMW, Volkswagen and Porsche -- has been slow in designing a battery-powered vehicle for serial production.
Daimler and BMW are about to launch electric car test trials in several German cities, but the 200 vehicles to be put on the streets are redesigned Smart and Mini Cooper models with huge battery packs in their trunks -- clearly not the ideal solution for an all-electric future.
It took Daimler, a world-leading car giant, until late June to launch the German industry's hybrid vehicle, almost a decade after market leader Toyota introduced the Prius. Volkswagen head Martin Winterkorn said earlier this month his company would offer its first all-electric vehicle in 2013, but that would be a full two years after the announced completion of the Chevrolet Volt. And grand plans do not necessarily have to become reality: Mercedes-Benz, for example, in 2002 announced it would have its first hydrogen fuel cell car ready by 2004. The company has long dropped that plan.
German car makers have over the past years focused almost exclusively on diesel and internal combustion engines.
While the likes of Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen have been producing some very fuel-efficient cars, they are also making the horse-power-studded limousines and sports cars the German automobile industry is famous for. And their reliance on traditional engines has caused them to miss a timely entry into what could soon become a booming sustainable mobility market, observers say.
There are careful signs that this is now changing: BMW just announced it would scrap its Formula 1 racing team in a bid to focus on new engine technologies and sustainability.
Daimler has invested $50 million in Tesla, the San Carlos, Calif.-based maker of long-range electric vehicles. It initially bought a stake of 10 percent in the company, but later resold 4 percent to an Abu Dhabi-based investor.
Volkswagen aims to build hybrid or electric cars with BYD of China, an agreement announced after the Germans reached a deal with Japan's Toshiba to design and produce the engines for these cars.
