Merkel is chatting with the car industry about how to speed the move to low-emission battery-powered vehicles.

“For this purpose, we want to create a million charging points by the year 2030 and the industry will have to participate in this effort, that is what we will be talking about”, Merkel said. Germany now has just 20,000 public charging points.

Stephan Weil, the prime minister in Lower Saxony, wants to see commitments for 100,000 public charging points in place by 2021.

Weil is a supervisory board member at Volkswagen, a role which no one sees as a vested interest, so it probably isn't. VW is committed to moving to battery-powered cars but needs to see more charging infrastructure in order to market them successfully.

The meeting in the Chancellery is the second on the matter that aims to bring speedy action so that Germany’s transport sector can help meet national emissions targets. Would-be buyers have cited a lack of fuel infrastructure as a reason to shun electric cars.

The government will is looking into hydrogen fuel cells, with the government and the industry sharing the cost of subsidies to attract buyers for both. Merkel said the government aimed to preserve jobs making cars and parts. It is becoming clear that fewer employees are needed to construct electric cars than conventional ones.