Holy cow. It looks like Germans are really, really rethinking electric vehicles.
29 thoughts on “Germans and their vehicles”
rick_jones
Clearly they have three, distinct opinions on the topic…
painedumonde
Oder, three editors think they have opinions about those German opinions.
frankwilhoit
Aller guten Dinge sind drei.
Brandy Miller
My cousin could genuinely get cash in their extra time on their PC. their dearest companion had been doing this 4 somewhere around a year and at this point cleared the obligation. in their smaller than usual house and purchased an extraordinary Vehicle.
Yep. Add it up; Germans are thinking six times about electric vehicles. That's a lot of German thinking.
mistermeyer
Old Doors song, right? "Love me six times, baby.... love me sence today..."
jte21
Germany's not "rethinking" electric automobiles at all. There's a debate about ending generous subsidies/rebates for EVs, and while Germans do love their high-performance cars, many don't really drive much at all, given the extensive public transportation options in most places, so concerns about gas prices, etc. are not as intense as here in the US where most people outside a few large cities like NYC can't live without an automobile.
Salamander
Re public transportation, and apropos of nothing, yesterday I enjoyed Albuquerque's bus transportation system. Only complaint was that the schedule has excessive wait times. On the other hand (or not!), ridership during the middle of the day was low.
To its credit, city government is trying to rebuild Covid-diminished ridership by making all buses FREE for the next several months. I hope it works. There are many cases when the one (1) car is not available, and a $20 Uber ride for a quick, short distance errand is ... ludicrous.
jte21
Never been to NM, but I'd really like to see Alberquerque and Santa Fe someday. Bus frequency is an issue in the suburban/rural area where I live as well. Ridership numbers probably can't justify running busses every 10 minutes, but you're never going to build those numbers if the frequency is such that a basic errand takes a couple of hours to complete. Vicious circle.
coral
Frequency problem is the main reason I hardly ever use the public bus system here in Western MA university town, even though the bus stop is less than a quarter mile from my house. There are about 6 buses a day, and none on weekends and limited further when college is not in session.
And then you have to go to the middle of town and or to the college, and link up with another infrequently serviced line to get anywhere else.
It just doesn't work for errands or shopping or appointments. Only if you want to stay all day.
In some small cities in Italy I've taken very tiny buses that were packed with people, and they ran very frequently (every 15 minutes or so).
MindGame
NM deserves to be high on everyone's travel-destinations list.
Bardi
Damn, I miss skiing Taos.
MindGame
Even Santa Fe Ski Basin is pretty damned spectacular for its small size.
MindGame
Funding higher frequency rates would likely be a better way to increase ridership than the 100% fare subsidy. People are generally willing to pay a fair price for a transportation service when the system is dense enough and frequent enough to reliably get from A to B without great inconvenience. The increasing revenue that results from increased ridership also becomes a virtuous cycle, which makes service expansion more affordable.
DFPaul
Yes I've noticed there are no electric Mercedes or Audis. My god, how do they maintain this negativity.
DaBunny
Yep. None at all. I mean...except for the few you might stumble on if you googled "audi electric" or "mercedes electric". But come on, how much detailed research can you expect a poor beleaguered editorial board to do?
Clearly they have three, distinct opinions on the topic…
Oder, three editors think they have opinions about those German opinions.
Aller guten Dinge sind drei.
My cousin could genuinely get cash in their extra time on their PC. their dearest companion had been doing this 4 somewhere around a year and at this point cleared the obligation. in their smaller than usual house and purchased an extraordinary Vehicle.
That is our specialty. https://payfast247.blogspot.com/
Or six!
Yep. Add it up; Germans are thinking six times about electric vehicles. That's a lot of German thinking.
Old Doors song, right? "Love me six times, baby.... love me sence today..."
Germany's not "rethinking" electric automobiles at all. There's a debate about ending generous subsidies/rebates for EVs, and while Germans do love their high-performance cars, many don't really drive much at all, given the extensive public transportation options in most places, so concerns about gas prices, etc. are not as intense as here in the US where most people outside a few large cities like NYC can't live without an automobile.
Re public transportation, and apropos of nothing, yesterday I enjoyed Albuquerque's bus transportation system. Only complaint was that the schedule has excessive wait times. On the other hand (or not!), ridership during the middle of the day was low.
To its credit, city government is trying to rebuild Covid-diminished ridership by making all buses FREE for the next several months. I hope it works. There are many cases when the one (1) car is not available, and a $20 Uber ride for a quick, short distance errand is ... ludicrous.
Never been to NM, but I'd really like to see Alberquerque and Santa Fe someday. Bus frequency is an issue in the suburban/rural area where I live as well. Ridership numbers probably can't justify running busses every 10 minutes, but you're never going to build those numbers if the frequency is such that a basic errand takes a couple of hours to complete. Vicious circle.
Frequency problem is the main reason I hardly ever use the public bus system here in Western MA university town, even though the bus stop is less than a quarter mile from my house. There are about 6 buses a day, and none on weekends and limited further when college is not in session.
And then you have to go to the middle of town and or to the college, and link up with another infrequently serviced line to get anywhere else.
It just doesn't work for errands or shopping or appointments. Only if you want to stay all day.
In some small cities in Italy I've taken very tiny buses that were packed with people, and they ran very frequently (every 15 minutes or so).
NM deserves to be high on everyone's travel-destinations list.
Damn, I miss skiing Taos.
Even Santa Fe Ski Basin is pretty damned spectacular for its small size.
Funding higher frequency rates would likely be a better way to increase ridership than the 100% fare subsidy. People are generally willing to pay a fair price for a transportation service when the system is dense enough and frequent enough to reliably get from A to B without great inconvenience. The increasing revenue that results from increased ridership also becomes a virtuous cycle, which makes service expansion more affordable.
Yes I've noticed there are no electric Mercedes or Audis. My god, how do they maintain this negativity.
Yep. None at all. I mean...except for the few you might stumble on if you googled "audi electric" or "mercedes electric". But come on, how much detailed research can you expect a poor beleaguered editorial board to do?
https://www.mbusa.com/en/eq-electric-cars
https://www.audiusa.com/us/web/en/models/electric-models.html
Working for Rupe they are surely wildly underpaid.
Even Porsche is all in on electric
https://www.porsche.com/usa/models/taycan/taycan-models/
Here is my future dream car:
https://insideevs.com/news/651136/porsche-boxster-ev-spotted-charging/
Does it go up by one every time they think twice, or does it double?
I count 2^3 thought paths through the German mind on this.
So they have thought about EVs 8 times.
I hear EV8's have more power than V6's....
(I saw what you did there...)
keyboard cat will be suing for attribution on whatever that biden article is
As the Valley Girls used to say, "For sure, for sure."
OK, that's all well and good, but what I want to know is... are Germans thinking twice about electric vehicles?
(Disclaimer: I am of German descent, and I am -not- thinking twice about electric vehicles.)
Is that the WSJ?
fyi: There's a recent report on new German hybrid vehicles not meeting mileage claims in the real world
https://www.isi.fraunhofer.de/en/presse/2022/presseinfo-16-Kraftstoffverbrauch-Plug-in-Hybridfahrzeuge.html
There was a write up on this a week or so ago, and included discussion of tax rebates on hybrids too, etc....but Google is failing me at the moment...
Did anyone else notice that this little cuteness means that Kevin is giving Rupert Murder $200/year?
Tsk-tas, Kevin