5 ms·
They need to prop up dying German car companies, and are OK with using European lives as collateral.
by CalRobert 11mo ago
They need to prop up dying German car companies, and are OK with using European lives as collateral.
- raverbashing 11mo agoAs much as German car companies suck it's not them that are road killers
- CalRobert 11mo agoAmong other issues, Volkswagen killed roughly 1200 people by cheating on their emissions tests. https://lae.mit.edu/2024/06/28/study-quantifies-premature-deaths-in-europe-resulting-from-volkswagens-excess-emissions/ https://lae.mit.edu/2024/06/28/study-quantifies-premature-de...
- raverbashing 11mo agoBesides the whataboutism, this is 1200 premature deaths (of mostly frail people). As much as I'm sensible to the topic of air pollution, putting that number closer to the number of, I dunno, premature deaths attributable to Coal power plants will give a more realistic view of the problem
- bluecalm 11mo agoI don't know man. Most big SUVs on EU roads are German. Same goes for "sport" cars. While American trucks are terrible the crazies in BMWs and Mercedes SUVs with huge engines have more impact (as they are more of them). EU regulators bent over to German companies allowing those cars on the road without additional restrictions. We all pay for that.
- raverbashing 11mo agoTrue but the problem with modern American trucks is that they have a high front (which means low frontal visibility) That's the biggest issue now differentiating them Even an older American truck is less dangerous than the modern generation
- jack_tripper 11mo ago>They need to prop up dying German car companies Germany isn't the only economy dependent on the legacy auto sector. France, Italy, Romania, Czechia, Slovakia and Belgium also have a lot of jobs, or had, in the auto industry, before the mass layoff of the last 2-3 years.
- CalRobert 11mo agoTrue, France does too of course, but Germany has been particularly stubborn. There's infighting within Europe, for that matter - note Polestar opposing Merz's attempts to weaken Europe's phase out of combustion vehicles. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsbirmingham/volvo-and-polestar-bosses-urge-eu-to-stick-to-2035-petrol-car-ban/ar-AA1RxqvX https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsbirmingham/volvo-and-pole...
- jack_tripper 11mo agoStubbornness to change is part of Germany's national identity, more often than not towards its own detriment. But also, Merz is not alone in this, but a lot of Eastern Europe can't afford EVs at current EU prices so the EU has to make some concessions. People in Romania or Bulgaria can't afford to buy a Polestar like people in Netherlands can. EU leaders needs to account for the massive disparities of purchasing power between places like Nordics and Romania/Bulgaria for example when they make sweeping legislation like that. Sure it would be nice if all of EU was like Norway with only EVs everywhere, but this way you'd basically be bankrupting and turning against you the people in the poorer countries of the union who are already disproportionately affected by the CoL crisis of the EU, who are effectively paying German energy and grocery prices but at Eastern EU salaries and pensions. This is not sustainable. Not to mention the disparity in public transportation infrastructure where a car is basically mandatory for commuting outside big cities in place like Romania.
- CalRobert 11mo agoMaybe Europe should allow cheap BYD's to be imported for the poor eastern Europeans them. Fossil fuels need to be eliminated. Europe is the fastest warming continent.
- izacus 11mo agoSo why would they allow easy imports of US cars?