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No disagreement there, but this should have happened over a decade ago. Instead, we got DieselGate, not just one, but at this point, several of them [0] and th

No disagreement there, but this should have happened over a decade ago. Instead, we got DieselGate, not just one, but at this point, several of them [0] and the responsible parties, even government agencies who knew but tried to hide it, just shrug their shoulders and nothing changes. Now they can celebrate themselves for putting EV on their agenda when everybody else is already miles ahead. Which is a common theme with German politics and any kind of tech innovation [1] [0] https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2019/10/abgase-dieselskandal-nox-messung-kraftfahrtbundesamt-autos-schmutzig.html https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2019/10/abgase-dieselsk... [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-neuland-gaff-elicits-ridicule-and-goes-viral-on-twitter-a-906859.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-neuland-...

pgeorgi 7y ago
> German politics and any kind of tech innovation I came to believe that German politics still associates "high tech" with the cog wheel: more cog wheels, more tech. Since that doesn't apply to IT, it completely falls by the wayside. And since EVs have less of them than an ICE car, they're also lower tech than regular cars. So far that's the only way I could make sense of it all.
- freeflight 7y ago
  That would also explain the tendency to still bet on "rare metals" aka copper as a transmission medium for the Internet.
  - pgeorgi 7y ago
    I think that has more to do with Projekt Opal by the Bundespost (see https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Glasfaser-in-ihrem-Lauf-haelt-DSL-im-Osten-auf-3443663.html https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Glasfaser-in-ihrem-Lauf... from 2001): An early fiber network project that tanked and cut off entire villages from any newer technology than 33.6kbps modems for a decade or so.
  - paganel 7y ago
    Related to that, it surprised me how spotty the Internet was when I drove from Salzburg all the way to Strasbourg via Karlsruhe a few weeks ago (my gf who was riding shotgun used a more explicit word to describe it). Supposedely those are the best developed regions of Germany (we passed close to Munich and Stuttgart, i.e. the hometowns of BMW and Merecedes). The highway itself (the A8) is in need of further improvements especially the part between Salzburg and Munich.

pgeorgi 7y ago

> German politics and any kind of tech innovation I came to believe that German politics still associates "high tech" with the cog wheel: more cog wheels, more tech. Since that doesn't apply to IT, it completely falls by the wayside. And since EVs have less of them than an ICE car, they're also lower tech than regular cars. So far that's the only way I could make sense of it all.

freeflight 7y ago
That would also explain the tendency to still bet on "rare metals" aka copper as a transmission medium for the Internet.
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  I think that has more to do with Projekt Opal by the Bundespost (see https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Glasfaser-in-ihrem-Lauf-haelt-DSL-im-Osten-auf-3443663.html https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Glasfaser-in-ihrem-Lauf... from 2001): An early fiber network project that tanked and cut off entire villages from any newer technology than 33.6kbps modems for a decade or so.
- paganel 7y ago
  Related to that, it surprised me how spotty the Internet was when I drove from Salzburg all the way to Strasbourg via Karlsruhe a few weeks ago (my gf who was riding shotgun used a more explicit word to describe it). Supposedely those are the best developed regions of Germany (we passed close to Munich and Stuttgart, i.e. the hometowns of BMW and Merecedes). The highway itself (the A8) is in need of further improvements especially the part between Salzburg and Munich.