In another electrifying example of tax dollar waste (or in this case tax euro waste), Angela Merkel’s government has just made a deal with automakers to spend some 1.2 billion euros on incentives to boost sluggish electric car sales in Germany.

“The goal is to move forward as quickly as possible on electric vehicles,” one high-ranking government official said while attaching the electrodes to the German nation’s sweaty forehead. “With this, we are giving an impetus.”

And if that first shock doesn’t work, who cares? This is renewable energy they’re using here, folks.

Just over 30,000 electric vehicles, which are more expensive than conventional models, have been sold in Germany. That’s a tiny fraction of the more than 3 million cars bought each year in a country which has historically leaned on diesel technology to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.