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Germany jumpstarts electric car initiative

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday kicked off an ambitious initiative to put one million electric cars on Germany’s streets in the next decade.

Published: 3 May 2010 14:33 CEST
Germany jumpstarts electric car initiative
Photo: DPA

Berlin hopes the so-called “National Platform for Electric Mobility” will give the country’s all-important car industry a technological edge over foreign competitors in order to secure some 750,000 jobs.

“We intend to make the auto sector fit for the future,” Merkel said after hosting 400 representatives from the car industry, science community and policymakers.

Led by Henning Kagermann, the former head of software firm SAP, the initiative will co-ordinate the efforts of seven working groups focused on areas such as electric motors, batteries and the infrastructure required for e-cars.

The German government has said it hopes to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2020. The forum will report back to Merkel this autumn and in Spring 2011 on its progress. But Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer rejected calls by the auto industry for a government subsidy for purchases of e-cars.

“I’m counting on the attractiveness of the products,” Ramsauer said.

Instead, the government is looking into supporting research and development, offering free urban parking for electric car and other incentives.

Before the meeting in Berlin on Monday, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche dismissed criticism that German carmakers had been slow to develop electric vehicles.

“This ‘sleepiness’ is a myth,” he told public broadcaster ZDF. But he acknowledged the shift away from combustion engines to cleaner electric cars wouldn’t happen overnight. “It will be a long road,” he said.

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CLIMATE

Central and southern Italy brace for storms and heavy snow

Storms and snowfall are forecast across much of central and southern Italy over the next few days, according to weather reports.

Published: 29 November 2021 15:13 CET
Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy.
Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy. Photo: Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Italy’s Civil Protection Department on Monday issued ‘orange’ alerts for bad weather along Campania’s Tyrrhenian coastline and the western part of Calabria, while Sicily, Basilicata, Lazio, Molise, Umbria, Abruzzo, central-western Sardinia, and the remaining areas of Campania and Calabria are under a lower-level ‘yellow’ weather warning.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is warning Italy’s central-southern regions to prepare for a blast of polar air from the Arctic Circle that will bring heavy snowfall, rain and storms, reports national weather forecaster Il Meteo.

The village of Grotte di Castro in the province of Viterbo, two hours’ drive north of Rome, mountainous parts of Sardinia, and much of the province of Campobasso in the central-eastern region of Molise were already blanketed in snow on Monday morning.

The department is responsible for predicting, preventing and managing emergency events across the country, and uses a green, yellow, orange and red graded colour coding system for weather safety reports.

An orange alert signifies a heavy rainfall, landslide and flood risk, while a yellow alert warns of localised heavy and potentially dangerous rainfall.

The current meteorological conditions mean that snow is expected to reach unusually low altitudes of around 450-500 metres, with flakes already falling thickly on parts of the southern-central Apennines mountain range at 500-700 metres altitude.

The hills of Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Lazio, Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Basilicata are likely to see heavy snow around the 500m mark, while areas at an altitude of 1000m or higher will see between 50-60 cm of fresh snow.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall. Photo: Vincenzo PINTO /AFP

In areas where the snow is unlikely to reach, heavy rains and thunderstorms are anticipated, with rain forecast throughout Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Lazio, reports Il Meteo.

Strong winds are forecast over the whole country, with the island regions of Sicily and Sardinia facing windspeeds of over 100km/hour and the risk of storm surges, according to the national newspaper La Repubblica.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

The north of the country, meanwhile, will see sun but low temperatures of below 0°C at night in many areas, including across much of the Po Valley.

While conditions are expected to stabilise on Tuesday, cold currents from Northern Europe are forecast to trigger another wave of bad weather on Wednesday and Thursday, with Sardinia and Italy’s western coastline again at risk of storms and heavy rainfall that will move up towards Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Veneto in the north.

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