Germany still exports cars like hotcakes.
But China exports more.
China’s car exports surpass Germany’s after 54.4 per cent surge to 3.11 million in 2022, narrowing Japan’s lead – China has surpassed Germany to become the world’s second-largest car exporter after mainland exports jumped 54.4 per cent year on year to 3.11 million vehicles in 2022, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
That means ban. The only thing the German Green party does well. And they do it with vehemence. And constantly.
Germany to support EU plans for 2035 ban on new fossil-fuel cars, says environment minister – Germany plans to vote in support of a European Union package that would effectively ban the sale of new cars with combustion engines from 2035, said the environment minister on Tuesday.
“If the package includes what the Commission suggested, banning cars that emit carbon dioxide from 2035, then we will vote in support,” Environment Minister Steffi Lemke told broadcaster ZDF.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) said at an event hosted by Germany’s BDI industry association last week that the German government would not agree to the plan.
Tesla already has disrupted everything.
Tesla’s Factory Threatens To Disrupt German Auto Industry. The Germans are playing catch-up now. Scheiße happens. The innovator always leads.
This is a lucrative business for Tesla. The company made $3.3 billion in the past five years from 11 states in the U.S. that, like the EU, force automakers that can’t meet emissions reduction goals to buy credits from companies like Tesla. But this revenue stream promises to run dry in the coming years as EU automakers ramp up their electric vehicle fleets. But because Tesla’s entire fleet is electric, Birgit Dietze of IG Metall, Germany’s auto workers union, says the company is already ahead of its German competitors.
Not. Again. Yawn.
The latest proposal to introduce a general speed limit on German autobahns has not received the needed support from lawmakers.
I’ve never understood this. From time to time the Greens & Co. suggest that Germans reduce their speed on the autobahn. It’s a fine idea, I guess. In theory. But that would be like asking Americans to turn in their guns. It ain’t never going to happen.
Der Vorschlag des Umweltausschusses, die geplante Änderung der Straßenverkehrsordnung um eine Höchstgeschwindigkeit von 130 Kilometern pro Stunde zu ergänzen, fand am Freitag in Berlin wie erwartet keine Mehrheit in der Länderkammer.
That means lowest level. You know, like the current 23-year low in German car production?
German car production fell to its lowest in almost a quarter of a century as Europe’s biggest economy suffers from the fallout of a global trade war.
Automakers including Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Daimler AG produced 4.66 million vehicles in German factories last year, the weakest since 1996. The country’s VDA car lobby, which published the figures on Monday, said the 9% decrease was a result of waning demand from international markets.
The industry is set for more tough times this year. The VDA predicted global car deliveries will drop to 78.9 million vehicles from 80.1 million in 2019.
That’s a beauty, isn’t it? Some prefer using the word Tempolimit instead. To save time. Both mean “speed limit,” however. And no, it can’t happen here.
A measure to introduce a 130 km/h (roughly 81 mph) speed limit on the network of motorways that has crisscrossed the country since the ‘30s was introduced by the German Green Party was rejected on Thursday by a majority of Bundestag members. Germany is currently the only country in Europe with stretches of unrestricted motorways, with neighboring countries conforming at the very least to the 130 km/h limit similar to the one proposed.
Bundestag lehnt Tempolimit auf Autobahnen ab.
That means engine displacement or capacity. Or horsepower, if you prefer. You know, like Fridays for Horsepower?
The German Motorists Who Oppose Greta Thunberg – Motorists in Germany are banding together to oppose climate activists’ calls to limit the use of cars. Politicians are taking them seriously because, unlike the Fridays for Future movement and its leader Greta Thunberg, most members of the Fridays for Horsepower group can vote.
“Fridays for Horsepower is a logical and reasonable reaction to the ideological madness of the environmental activists.”
It can’t even stay parked in Germany.
Damn. A car like this doesn’t honk. It blings.
A golden car was pulled over by police on Sunday as it was “too bright.” Police were concerned that the car would dazzle other drivers in the western German city of Düsseldorf.
A police spokesman said the potentially dangerous “dazzling effect” was why the car had been pulled over.
German engineering at its best.
Talk about a mother of invention…
In 1963, a man named Klaus-Günter Jacobi decided to help his best friend escape East Berlin and before being forced to report for duty in the East German army. To do so, he decided to modify his BMW Isetta to be able to hide a body.
Now, if you’re not especially familiar with the Isetta, it’s a tiny bubble car with a motorcycle engine at the back and barely enough room for two people to sit in the bench seat behind the front opening door. Space is at a premium, but Jacobi — who had trained as a mechanic — found that there was a dead space behind his seat and next to the Isetta’s tiny engine that could be used to smuggle a person.
The Small Escape
No more than anywhere else in Germany, I mean.
Everything contradicts itself here. Otherwise they wouldn’t call this place Germany. It’s einfach kompliziert (simply complicated) in this country. Germans don’t like or want electric cars, for example, but are obsessed with “saving the climate.”
With the contradiction between Germans’ climate anxiety and their love of huge SUVs, it’s no surprise that carmakers are struggling – Amid trade wars and plunging China sales, the number of cars rolling off Germany’s production lines has dropped by 12% this year and exports by 14%. European auto sales fell 3% in the first eight months of 2019. 1 With demand expected to remain weak for a couple of years, the German parts supplier Continental AG isn’t ruling out cuts to working hours and jobs.
Meanwhile… Riding a bike and car-sharing have become a genuine alternative in cities such as Berlin.
Observing Hermann 