Who Is the Most Electric Head of State?
Recently (as a present to the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2, also known as VE Day), the French president Emmanuel Macron presented his new official car: and it’s all-electric! You might say that he got a ‘BEV for VE Day’! He is not only the first president of a republic to have a fully electric official state vehicle – he is also setting an example for any government and head of state fighting for a more sustainable mobility.
As expected, the new car is heavily armored. Any official state vehicle needs to be armored. I can’t wait to see one of our many German car manufacturers presenting their first fully electric, armored state vehicle to Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz . Macron’s car has a 750km range and can charge 200km of range within 10 minutes. Such a high-end #BEV could also be very interesting for many business leaders beyond our political leadership elite.
Looking around the world, it seems that currently most political leaders are not leading at all when it comes to e-mobility. Although former U.S. president Eisenhower was known to drive an electric car over 100 years ago (!), you may not be surprised to hear that U.S. president Trump’s “The Beast” (as his limo is widely known) is not electric at all.
But even in Germany, only two heads of states (in Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg) are driving (or are being driven around in) fully electric government cars. It’s a long way to electrify the car fleets of governments in Germany, at the European Union and around the world. It would send a strong message though if our politicians would make the conscious decision to go for an electric car. I find it quite shocking that none of the German regional government fleets is averaging less than 120 g/km in CO2 emissions.
The newly announced 8-points plan of the new German government is trying to accelerate the adoption of electric cars in the country. While this is great, let’s see who will be the next politician or who will be the next car manufacturer taking our political elite on the streets in a fully electric car.