The only concession towards the road transport industry has been its  postponement from 1 December 2023 to 1 January 2024. The toll increase, which is strongly resented by the transport industry,  consists of a CO2 surcharge on top of the existing toll. It means increases of between 63% and 83% for owners/operators of 40-tonne trucks.

Imposing the increase from 1 December 2023 would have been an “absolute catastrophe,” as truck operators would mostly have been unlikely to incorporate the rise in their 2023 contracts, Dirk Engelhardt, chairman of the German road haulage association Bundesverband Güterkraftverkehr Logistik und Entsorgung (BGL) had told a parliamentary commission in late September.

Its deferral to 1 January 2024, however, was all the industry got. In addition, the planned lowering of the weight threshold from 7.5 tonnes of total weight to 3.5 tonnes has remained intact and will be imposed from 1 July 2024. This had always been the intention given that it is an integral part of the  now adopted Third Maut Revision Act.

“Putting the CO2 surcharge on top of the existing Maut (€0.19 per motorway km  for a 40-tonne Euro 6 truck) is a “useless inflation accelerator with no modal shift effect,” said Engelhard during the parliamentary hearing. “Many trucking companies are contemplating quitting.”

The  levy of the new CO2 component of the toll depends on various factors, but mostly the engine type and emissions class.

A truck over 18 tonnes with five axles (the requirement for almost any 2 x 20ft container trips) will from 1 January 2024 pay €0.348 per motorway km. This is 83.2% more than the current rate of €0.19 per motorway km.This applies to a Euro 6 truck category A, emission  class 1 vehicle. As a result, for every 100,000 kms driven on Germany’s motorway grid, the operator will pay €15,800 more a year.

A 40-tonne Euro 5 truck (category B, emission class 1 vehicle) will see its Maut increase from €0.229 to €0.389 per motorway km, a rise of  69.9%. Meanwhile, a truck (Euro 6, category A, emissions class 1) in the newly added 3.5-7.49 tonne range will be charged €0.151 per motorway km from 1 July 202401.07.2024 (Euro 6, category A, emission class 1).

The German government stated that (with the CO2 surcharge), it wants to stage a ‘price signal’ to encourage a shift to battery or fuel cell trucks. At the same time Berlin has earmarked the €26.6B that it anticipates as additional income from the new CO2 component of the toll for rail improvements. Over the same period, the new 3.5-7.5 tonne category is expected to yield  €4B, with €1.83B generated by the CO2 component of the charge.

The BGL has riposted that E-trucks are up to 3.5 times more expensive to buy than diesel trucks, adding that there is not one single mega charger around that can fuel an E-truck enough for its next long-haul destination in the duration of the driver’s compulsory stop. “Today, only 0.03% of Germany’s 800,000 trucks are electric. It will take a few years to replace the diesel trucks, provided that the market can deliver on such a scale,” it stated.

Meanwhile, Frank Huster, director of Bundesverband Spedition und Logistik (DSLV), another German road transport association, has criticised the government’s one-sided focus on E-trucks. He called for a similar focus on innovative biogenic fuels, such as HV100, Bio-LNG, Bio-CNG and E-Fuels. Furthermore, DSLV is very sceptical about the pace at which additional railfreight transhipment facilities would be realised, arguing that the Maut increase will fail to promote modal shift.