Agreed, it's unlikely to be retrospective on the federal level. But I assume cities are free to introduce no-emission zones once electric cars hit the mainstrea

Agreed, it's unlikely to be retrospective on the federal level. But I assume cities are free to introduce no-emission zones once electric cars hit the mainstream. The existing Umweltzonen (low-emission zones) in Germany are retrospective, they don't make exceptions for cars that are older than the law (except for antique cars). The German gov't also subsidised the renewal of older cars in 2009 with 2500€ per citizen, so that's another model that could be of interest to lobbyists. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umweltprämie https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umweltprämie Of course, that won't work out for the German industry if everyone buys a Tesla.