Energy industry development in 2025
kfz-tech.de/YKfz6
Can the situation towards the end of 2025 be described reasonably accurately? Difficult. Some time ago the Elektrotrucker was one of the first to report it: Electric trucks will be exempt from tolls until at least 2031, at least in
Germany.
That's five years in which a lot can happen in the truck sector. A heavy diesel truck pays 34.8 cents per kilometer in tolls, which amounts to half a million euros over a service life of 1.5 million kilometers. In addition to the
fuel savings alone, it should be more than worth it despite the higher purchase price.
The bad news follows immediately: in the EU alone, we have approximately 60 million trucks that would need to be retrofitted. One more thing: since 2014/15 and probably until 2029, work has been underway to convert a
good 20 percent of households with gas heating to more energy-rich natural gas.
No one has apparently come up with the idea of immediately converting old devices that cannot cope with this changeover to more climate-neutral heating systems of any kind. People initially buy lightly subsidized new gas
heating systems and later heat pumps.
The switch to electricity meters for bidirectional charging, combined with up to 90 percent of electric cars being stationary, is not progressing. The ones that appear to be truly usable are increasingly available in France, for
example, but here they are so technologically advanced that they cost several thousand euros.
The "back to combustion engines" movement seems to be gaining momentum. Hydrogen seems to have lost its reputation for being ineffective and very expensive. Daimler does not even rule out all-round cooling to
approx. -250°C, at least for trucks.
Please compare this with the news at the top and the 40 million who need to be converted. At least this company seems to have learned its lesson, as it now wants to offer vehicles like the A-Class again at some point.
Germany wants to push ahead with digitization, but this is precisely what is causing the opening of the new train station in Stuttgart, which has already been postponed once, to fail. We wouldn't mind so much if at least
the respective grid expansion would take significantly less than 10 years.
Perhaps, in addition to greater citizen participation, one or two gas-fired power plants could be eliminated. Even their possible conversion to hydrogen at a later date does not stand up to expert assessments. Or will we no
longer travel by ship or plane?
Although it is fundamentally right for politicians to seek the advice of experts, lobbying has been taking on intolerable forms for some time now, apparently even more so in the EU than in Germany. And politics is partially
paralyzed by overly strong political fringes.
That is why Germany's and the EU's energy policy is viewed from outside as ambitious in its goals, but it is also clearly perceived that there are too many bureaucratic hurdles and unnecessary political conflicts in its
implementation.
What is not being discussed at all in this country are the economic opportunities that will arise once the crises have been overcome, e.g. in network expansion. Estimates for fossil fuel imports by the EU currently range
between €300 billion and €430 billion (ChatGPT) per year, which would then no longer be necessary.
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