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German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit
- durnygbur 5y agoGood luck setting up in Germany a manufactury alternative to Daimler, BMW, Audi, or VW. It's literally a threat to their existence and they'll react accordingly. Sometimes it shows how disconnected Americans are from the local European realities. Even if Tesla will succeed they'll have to fly workers from Ukraine, Branderburg is a demographical desert. Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania are desperate to subcontract for automotive, they'll literally suck every dick and rubberstamp every papper to have it on their soil.
- _Microft 5y agoThe issue could be rather that Musk might have mistakenly thought that he could get away with "move fast and flout rules" here in Germany and now he's coming back to Earth with a bang. See how "Musk blames bureaucracy" instead of blaming Tesla for not doing their homework properly the first time? https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/passenger-vehicle/cars/teslas-musk-blames-bureaucracy-for-german-gigafactory-delays/82715202 https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/passenger-veh...
- durnygbur 5y agoAnd who was the investor of BER that had to be put back to Earth with a bang?
- wait_a_minute 5y agoMusk should just build the plant in Romania instead. Beautiful country, and we will accept the business and tax revenue with open arms ;)
- _Microft 5y agoIf you want to keep your country beautiful, you might want to consider enforcing some rules so that it stays like that. That's exactly what German groups are trying here. You do not get nice countries by lowering the standards there.
- durnygbur 5y agoJust south of this manufactury in Lausitz there are the largest open-pit mines of brown coal in Europe. Somehow this is not a problem, or vast open-pit mines are an asset to the countryside and the environment?
- _Microft 5y agoThese are huge problems, not just there but also in western Germany, and they are seeing opposition as well. As far as I am concerned, I would have shut down coal plants and coal mines ages ago (while keeping nuclear power plants running longer instead).
- wait_a_minute 5y agoAhhh yes, the country where those automotive groups kept the world and their country pristine and pure by… checks notes intentionally lying about emissions in their vehicles that are sold all over the place!
- _Microft 5y agoThese manufacturers flouted the rules and were eventually caught as well. If we hadn't had the rules, they could have gone on with that unopposed, so this is basically making my point?
- wait_a_minute 5y agoThey got away with it for a long time and at a huge scale and barely got a slap on the wrist. Your point is not proven. If anything it is harmed by this reality because it suggests environmental concerns are not actually that high up on Germany’s priorities and it seems like a concern-troll for them to cite environmental concerns now lol. They’re afraid of American muscle challenging their brands. Anyway, a Gigafactory in Romania would have many awesome loyal workers and it’d be a beautiful facility in a beautiful country. :)
- imtringued 5y agoIt actually isn't a threat to their existence if German car makers respond early enough. It's a bigger threat to their existence if there is nobody to wake them up before they die.
- durnygbur 5y agoIf this means less Audi/BMW/Mercedes cars blinding me with their headlights and tailing 2m behind me, let them sleep.
- Lio 5y agoYou do realise that that is driver behaviour don't you? The arseholes that do that in Audi/BMW/Mercedes will just switch to do the same thing in another brand if these companies cease to exist. Still I never appreciated some of Audi's marketing that seemed to encourage this sort of bad behaviour.
- durnygbur 5y agoIt's marketing and sales techniques of these premium brands emphasizing on arrogance, vanity, competitivenes, jealousity. At this point I really don't care because I'm starting to have Pavlov reflexes on seeing their front grills and logos. > The arseholes that do that in Audi/BMW/Mercedes will just switch to do the same thing in another brand if these companies cease to exist. If this is such a global phenomenon, maybe there exists a solution?
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoThere is no demographical desert, it's well in commute reach of Berlin. Maybe lacks S-Bahn, but they could bring them in by bus, like the FAANGS do/did theirs from SF to Silicon Valley. edit: I just looked it up on Openstreetmap with the traffic overlay, next stop for the S-Bahn is about 5km away, wouldn't even need to bus them in over long distance, just a tiny shuttle service from either 'Erkner', or 'Grünheide, Fangschleuse, Bahnhof' as can be seen here: https://openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=13&lat=52.42458&lon=13.76715&layers=00B0TT https://openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=13&lat=52.42458&lon...
- durnygbur 5y agoDude, these are not FAANG dream jobs. Qualified workers will earn gross 3.5k EUR/month, unqualified 2.7k EUR/month [1]. These salaries barely pay the rent in Berlin. Tesla is already trying to search in western Poland apparently unaware it's a similar wasteland. [1] https://gazetalubuska.pl/tesla-gigafactory-kusi-zarobkami-i-zatrudni-tez-polakow-ale-sa-warunki-kto-moze-starac-sie-o-prace/ar/c3-15441435 https://gazetalubuska.pl/tesla-gigafactory-kusi-zarobkami-i-...
- vt85 5y agoAnd what is the average salary of a developer in Berlin? Because I happen to know it's about that range. And it does pay the rent, and there isn't much better option. So, dude, this apparently are very good salaries for Berlin.
- durnygbur 5y agoThis is a salary in Berlin for an inexperienced bootcamp graduate. For new arrivals the rents in the city have reached at least 1-1.5k EUR per month long time ago.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoDude, maybe someone living on Hartz IV/ALG II in Marzahn, or something similar would enjoy it? Berlin isn't just Kreuzberg/Neukölln/Friedrichshain, you know?
- yawaworht1978 5y agoElon should be happy that on Mars, there will be neither a regulatory body nor environmental groups. Maybe they should just cheat like VW did? /S I see some objections here saying the level of "green" should be more related to the cars itself, not production. I find this is a bit like enjoying the sausage but looking away from how they are made, because it is rather nasty. Tesla has a way of presenting a " clean" product , but plays very dirty on all other fronts, like pricing lies , fsd promises which never materialize etc I think the whole supply chain , including production do contribute to how green a product is.
- avereveard 5y agoEveryone wants a green future as long as it's manufacturer in Africa or Asia
- lm28469 5y agoLol I don't think any environmental group would argument that. More like there will be no green future with personal vehicles, electric or not.
- EthanHeilman 5y agoI think you are straw-manning environmental groups here. It seems reasonable to have personal vehicles without climate change or other environmental damage.
- lm28469 5y ago> It seems reasonable to have personal vehicles without climate change or other environmental damage. If you sell it like that sure... afaik no one has found the solution to that equation, and lithium powered 2 tonnes metal cages transporting 1.4 person (on average) doesn't seem like a good fit to solve it. Sounds like a very inefficient way to do it actually. It's much more complex than "electric -> green -> good"
- Udik 5y agoThe problem is that there are groups that, given ~A => B, would argue both against A and against B.
- imtringued 5y agoInstead of trying to achieve a perfect ideal you should first find a solution that can get everyone on board. Replacing ICEs with EVs is just one step of many but it's the most agreeable solution over the short term. It's already difficult enough to get people to care about the environment at all.
- imtringued 5y agoI'll be honest. Nobody cares about Africa (or South America). Everyone only cares about the starving children there. So we send them food and clothes to clear our conscience. Problem solved.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoGoes to show how "green" Tesla is outside of the brainwashed choir.
- pestaa 5y agoThe details are important, and we should make a distinction between the environment-friendliness of Tesla products and their manufacturing sites. I think it is preferable to centralize the environmental impact so that it is easier to monitor and deal with.
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoEnvironmental groups file objections against every single major project in Germany. That's probably one of the reasons why major infrastructure projects in Germany never finish on time. I'm all for environment, but sometimes these complaints are just for complaint's sake.
- Mrdarknezz 5y agoWell building a battery factory in EUs worst CO2 polluter kinda makes no sense from an environmental viewpoint. Better to build it in Sweden or France which have a heavy Nuclear/Hydro mix in their grid.
- jackson1way 5y agoIs CO2 considered as pollution?
- tankenmate 5y agoThat is a bit of a strawman argument as then you should also argue for stopping all industry in Germany that has a heavy use of electricity (which battery manufacturing doesn't really compared to other things like aluminium smeltering). Germany is moving to more renewable sources of energy and Tesla also plans to put solar panels on the rooves of its buildings.
- Mrdarknezz 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fuzzy2 5y agoIt’s difficult to strike a balance between hysteria and justified skepticism. Especially with topics like electric cars. However, I believe this isn’t really about the environment. It’s about corruption, real or imaginary. People are afraid that companies, especially big companies, have it all too easy with the bureaucratic process, while individuals or small companies are stonewalled at every turn. If it makes municipality money, anything goes. Otherwise, not so much.
- WanderPanda 5y agoFunnily it is because of these objections and the other bureaucratic stuff that Tesla is able to pull this of (building pre permit etc.) and has the publicity to „make it work“ because if the project fails it would shed a bad light on Germany for other investments. Smaller projects don‘t have that privilege. Kind of a Cobra Effect situation
- WanderPanda 5y agoFrom first hand experience I know that these „environmental“ groups are also big in blocking smaller projects like wind turbines. In the end they are ultra conservative but can paint themselves in a modern, green way
- shlant 5y agoare you referring to specific groups involved with the Tesla gigafactory?
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoThat's actually pretty funny. The same people who want "green energy" end up opposing wind turbines, nuclear, solar and hydro energy. And what is left? Of course dirty coal and gas? And which gas? Of course fracked gas imported from the friends from the other side of the planet instead of natural gas imported from the enemy nearby.
- imtringued 5y agoSome of them are CDU members that want to stop the Energiewende. They usually come up with empty claims that make no sense. For example, there was a commercial forest for paper/cardboard production and it would have to be chopped early to make room for the Tesla plant. Suddenly people started fighting to protect a privately owned commercial forest that was nothing but a monoculture of the same tree species. Of course if the complaint is about chemical waste leaking from a factory that's serious and should be addressed but all the bullshit claims make it harder to actually protect the environment.
- xclr 5y agoThe Morgenthau plan to turn Germany into an agrarian nation is finally being implemented by Green/Left.
- homarp 5y agomore info https://www-grueneliga--brandenburg-de.translate.goog/index.php?cat=9&pageID=205&page=1&_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=ajax https://www-grueneliga--brandenburg-de.translate.goog/index.... (google translate link) and the previous entry: https://www.grueneliga-brandenburg.de/index.php?cat=9&pageID=196 https://www.grueneliga-brandenburg.de/index.php?cat=9&pageID... (not google translated)
- gglnx 5y agoThe news is a little bit short, but the objection to the first tests of their machines is, that in a case of emergency the current safety concept lacks measures to prevent the escaping of hydrogen fluoride (see the open letter in German by the Grüne Liga Brandenburg here: https://www.grueneliga-brandenburg.de/index.php?cat=2&pageID=206 https://www.grueneliga-brandenburg.de/index.php?cat=2&pageID...). They claim that changes to this safety concept will require changes to the factory itself and this changes need to be implemented first, before Tesla can start with it's tests.