Germany Plans Electric Car Motorway Charging Stations

Germany plans to expand the network of charging stations for electric cars across the country to help boost lacklustre demand, a Transport Ministry paper seen by Reuters showed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government wants to bring 1 million battery-powered vehicles onto the roads of Europe's largest economy by the end of the decade.

But high vehicle costs and drivers' concerns about infrastructure and limited battery range have held back sales in Germany to just 24,000 models out of a market of about 3 million cars, according to government data.

Germany currently only has about 100 quick service charging points for electric cars, allowing drivers to recharge batteries in less than an hour, and about 4,800 charging stations running on alternating current, according to the Transport Ministry.

"We will set up quick service charging stations along the motorways across Germany," Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt was quoted by regional newspaper Passauer Neue Presse as saying in an interview published on Saturday.

The Transport Ministry paper said German motorway services operator Tank & Rast GmbH was due to set up quick service charging stations and parking spots at its 400 sites by 2017.

The Berlin-based government will shoulder some of the costs of installing cables and related construction projects, the document showed. (Reporting by Thorsten Severin; Writing by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Alison Williams)