German Tesla buyers reportedly can again apply for subsidies after a government agency has ended its dispute over whether its Model S was too expensive to qualify for the incentives scheme.
An independent assessment proved that a base version of the Model S was available for less than the EUR60,000 euros (US$74,000) baseline and the cars are thus eligible, the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Controls (BAFA) told Reuters.
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The news agency noted Germany in 2016 launched the incentive scheme worth about EUR1bn, and partly financed by the German car industry, to boost electric car usage but it included a baseline to exempt premium models.
BAFA unexpectedly took Tesla's vehicles off the list in December, saying customers could not order the Model S base version without extra features that pushed the car above the price limit, the report said.
Tesla denied at the time that the no-frills version was not available and said this week a model was always available below the cut-off price.
BAFA said it was nonetheless reviewing previously approved applications for subsidies which could mean that buyers may be asked to repay subsidies they have already received.
BAFA has received a total of 1,275 applications for subsidies of Tesla purchases, according to its website, cited by Reuters. It was not immediately clear how many of those were approved before the agency removed Tesla from its list in December.
Under the subsidy scheme, buyers get EUR4,000 off their all-electric vehicle purchase and EUR3,000 off plug-in hybrids.
