Volkswagen received serious government support

The German Ministry of Economy, distributing taxpayers' money, has already directed public funds to the German automaker Volkswagen, and given the scandal with falsified emissions, now it is wondering: how good are these investments?

Thus, Volkswagen AG receives about 15.4 million euros in accordance with the funding of the Social Democratic Ministry. At the same time, BMW AG receives 11.6 million euros from the economic department in the course of ongoing projects. Daimler AG received € 9.9 million. This follows from an analysis of German Federal Funding data. Representatives of the federal government are deciding on the allocation of funds to automakers.

Volkswagen receives the most money from the Ministry of Economy for the subsidies among automakers. The payments were approved for “research in innovative, high chemical and resource-saving processes for lithium-ion battery cells for mobile applications in Germany”. In addition, Volkswagen AG will already receive over 2.5 million euros and will receive another 6.4 million euros under the program from December 2014 to November 2017 for Volkswagen Varta Microbattery Forschungsgesellschaft mbH & Co.

The cornerstone of the program is the National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE). NPE was launched with the active participation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010 and brought together representatives from industry, politicians and human rights organizations such as the Federation of German Industry.

NPE promises to make Germany the leading electric vehicle battery supplier on the market by 2020. The NPE is implemented by the Federal Ministries of Economy, Transport, Environmental Protection and Education. Responsible are the Ministry of Economy together with the Ministry of Transport. The steering committee consists of representatives from NPE BMW, Audi, VW, Daimler.

The federal system of government promotes car companies. Last year, as you know, payments made by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure were included in the list of government funding.