4 ms·

I live in Germany and am sure as hell that I will never be driving a $30k electric pickup here. They'll make sure nothing like this ever becomes legal to impor

by gyulai 4mo ago

I live in Germany and am sure as hell that I will never be driving a $30k electric pickup here. They'll make sure nothing like this ever becomes legal to import or drive on German roads until after there's a German car brand on it, and it costs 10x that while being identical, just to subsidize lots of local jobs that are low-wage, high-tax, and taking away manpower from other sectors/fields where it's more needed.

snowpid 4mo ago
vw offers a electro pickup for 36k excluding tax (43k EUR with tax, ). https://www.volkswagen-nutzfahrzeuge.de/de/modelle/transporter.html https://www.volkswagen-nutzfahrzeuge.de/de/modelle/transport... Its less than 10x
- cheschire 4mo ago
  I mean, you can see how a kastenwagen nutzfahrzeug is a very different vehicle from a consumer mid-size pickup, right? Sure, technically some would call the vehicle you linked a pickup, and technically German law still identifies the consumer pickup truck as a nutzfahrzeug instead of a PKW, but it doesn’t feel like you’re making a best effort to meet GP in the middle.
  - gyulai 4mo ago
    The distinction gets at something interesting though, and it's a weird intermingling of culture and politics. I think a truck as owned by a consumer, and as an American would understand the word, is, at least in part, a lifestyle statement derived from maybe overprovisioning on the horsepower. Such a lifestyle statement in Germany seems to be perfectly socially acceptable when it ties in with luxury and doing your "civic duty" by buying German, but it clearly ruffles feathers and meets with political headwind when it ties in with the culture and financial constraint of the "commoner".
    - cheschire 4mo ago
      In my experience the resistance seems to come from the sense of “waste” that comes from buying a specialized vehicle. Anecdotally the folks I talk to (all blue-collar “commoners”) are overly focused on buying the eierlegende Wollmilchsau[0] vehicle. They view specialized vehicles, especially luxury-priced specialized vehicles, as an unnecessary waste. Does this relate with your experience? It sounds like your perspective is broader than mine and more informed. Edit: oof two downvotes for trying to have a conversation and expand my understanding of a culture. Vielen dank. 0: definition for the English speakers: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eierlegende_Wollmilchsau https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eierlegende_Wollmilchsau
      - gyulai 4mo ago
        I was referring to something slightly different namely that price, horsepower, and socioeconomic status are all monotonically increasing functions of each other when you look at any given lineup of cars -- say you're comparing the different company cars owned by a given company, the different cars in the lineup of a given manufacturer, or the cars parked outside the venue when there's a wedding and the extended family has been invited. The cars themselves are all "trivial" variations of each other. I've noticed this more strongly in Germany than in other countries I've lived in (which is a few). You don't get the kind of variety of styles and designs you would get in the U.S. and many cars that are commonplace in the U.S. like a Ford Mustang or a Dodge RAM, when you encounter it in Germany, would instantly read as "someone desparate to get noticed". But the variation in horsepower is still there. It's not like cars with 300 HP are forbidden in Germany. It's just that they need to fit in the continuum. The 300HP BMW is the CEO's car, and its existence is justified by the fact that the other top managers drive the 200HP version which is otherwise almost the exact same car, which are in turn justified by the fact that the middle managers drive the 120HP version, and if you're a new-hire individual contributor then anything more than 90HP would cause a scandal if word got out. (I'm painting a mental picture here; obviously not making a universal claim). I think that culture is part of the reason why a $30k electric pickup truck would ruffle feathers so much, and it's a particularly stupid reason, but I think it's real. The "Kastenwagen" example from above escapes that calculus by clearly being something that stands completely outside of any established continuum of this kind. The rare Ford Mustang or imported Dodge RAM that you sometimes see in Germany is similarly socially/politically acceptable on the grounds that it would either be expensive as hell, or a car buff's hobby. Both of those cases mean the owner has duly paid for their ticket to the high-horsepower social club (either financially, or by having a respectable hobby and putting in the work), whereas a $30k electric pickup that you can just buy would come across as "cheating the system".
CalRobert 4mo ago
That sounds similar to the lamentations of American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks. It’s protectionism all the way down I guess. Though I see tons of US pickup trucks in the Netherlands, and have seen even lifted ones in Germany too for that matter.
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago
  Lamenting the difficulty of registering kei trucks is kind of rich coming from the patron saint of "the roads are horribly dangerous and we need to do everything to safen them up and drivers can bear whatever that costs" Protectionism when I don't like it, public safety when I do I guess. In any case, they're pretty easy to register if you don't lick the boot. Whatever state you're in typically isn't gonna come after you for tax evasion for an object they aren't in the business of taxing if you catch my drift.
  - Lvl999Noob 4mo ago
    > if you catch my drift Not OP but I don't. What do you mean? How do you make the kei truck an object they aren't in the business of taxing when they are, in fact, in that very business? Or maybe I have some deeper confusion about the issue here.
    - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
      > What do you mean? I think they mean it’s easier than many of us suspect to register an imported car as something close enough and get away with it. The most challenging bit would probably be maintenance.
      - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
        I meant just register it in one of the slightly less than half of states that let you do that. Even if some Karen narcs on you to the tax man unless it's an especially slow day the tax man will say something along the lines of "It's a what? We don't register those" The registration/tax people aren't in the business of giving a shit about the nuances of the vehicle code. They're in the business of collecting money. It's not like you're dodging meaningful fees on an entire truck fleet. You're dodging what would be a zero to them since they'd never let you register it. What are they gonna do send you one of those "we believe you owe us X, pay up or we'll use the full force of the state to fucking stomp you and ruin your life" letters with X= $0. I'm sure they'll get right on that.
laurencerowe 4mo ago
Cars in the US cost pretty much the same before taxes as in Europe. If Ford can build this truck in the US for this cost there seems little reason it couldn’t build it in the EU for a similar cost. Whether it will offer this body style or not is of course another question (Ford have stopped selling all regular cars in US, only offering crossovers, SUVs and trucks.) This is rather different to the perceived threat of cheap imports from China.

by gyulai 4mo ago

snowpid 4mo ago

vw offers a electro pickup for 36k excluding tax (43k EUR with tax, ). https://www.volkswagen-nutzfahrzeuge.de/de/modelle/transporter.html https://www.volkswagen-nutzfahrzeuge.de/de/modelle/transport... Its less than 10x

cheschire 4mo ago
I mean, you can see how a kastenwagen nutzfahrzeug is a very different vehicle from a consumer mid-size pickup, right? Sure, technically some would call the vehicle you linked a pickup, and technically German law still identifies the consumer pickup truck as a nutzfahrzeug instead of a PKW, but it doesn’t feel like you’re making a best effort to meet GP in the middle.
- gyulai 4mo ago
  The distinction gets at something interesting though, and it's a weird intermingling of culture and politics. I think a truck as owned by a consumer, and as an American would understand the word, is, at least in part, a lifestyle statement derived from maybe overprovisioning on the horsepower. Such a lifestyle statement in Germany seems to be perfectly socially acceptable when it ties in with luxury and doing your "civic duty" by buying German, but it clearly ruffles feathers and meets with political headwind when it ties in with the culture and financial constraint of the "commoner".
  - cheschire 4mo ago
    In my experience the resistance seems to come from the sense of “waste” that comes from buying a specialized vehicle. Anecdotally the folks I talk to (all blue-collar “commoners”) are overly focused on buying the eierlegende Wollmilchsau[0] vehicle. They view specialized vehicles, especially luxury-priced specialized vehicles, as an unnecessary waste. Does this relate with your experience? It sounds like your perspective is broader than mine and more informed. Edit: oof two downvotes for trying to have a conversation and expand my understanding of a culture. Vielen dank. 0: definition for the English speakers: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eierlegende_Wollmilchsau https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eierlegende_Wollmilchsau
    - gyulai 4mo ago
      I was referring to something slightly different namely that price, horsepower, and socioeconomic status are all monotonically increasing functions of each other when you look at any given lineup of cars -- say you're comparing the different company cars owned by a given company, the different cars in the lineup of a given manufacturer, or the cars parked outside the venue when there's a wedding and the extended family has been invited. The cars themselves are all "trivial" variations of each other. I've noticed this more strongly in Germany than in other countries I've lived in (which is a few). You don't get the kind of variety of styles and designs you would get in the U.S. and many cars that are commonplace in the U.S. like a Ford Mustang or a Dodge RAM, when you encounter it in Germany, would instantly read as "someone desparate to get noticed". But the variation in horsepower is still there. It's not like cars with 300 HP are forbidden in Germany. It's just that they need to fit in the continuum. The 300HP BMW is the CEO's car, and its existence is justified by the fact that the other top managers drive the 200HP version which is otherwise almost the exact same car, which are in turn justified by the fact that the middle managers drive the 120HP version, and if you're a new-hire individual contributor then anything more than 90HP would cause a scandal if word got out. (I'm painting a mental picture here; obviously not making a universal claim). I think that culture is part of the reason why a $30k electric pickup truck would ruffle feathers so much, and it's a particularly stupid reason, but I think it's real. The "Kastenwagen" example from above escapes that calculus by clearly being something that stands completely outside of any established continuum of this kind. The rare Ford Mustang or imported Dodge RAM that you sometimes see in Germany is similarly socially/politically acceptable on the grounds that it would either be expensive as hell, or a car buff's hobby. Both of those cases mean the owner has duly paid for their ticket to the high-horsepower social club (either financially, or by having a respectable hobby and putting in the work), whereas a $30k electric pickup that you can just buy would come across as "cheating the system".

CalRobert 4mo ago

That sounds similar to the lamentations of American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks. It’s protectionism all the way down I guess. Though I see tons of US pickup trucks in the Netherlands, and have seen even lifted ones in Germany too for that matter.

cucumber3732842 4mo ago
Lamenting the difficulty of registering kei trucks is kind of rich coming from the patron saint of "the roads are horribly dangerous and we need to do everything to safen them up and drivers can bear whatever that costs" Protectionism when I don't like it, public safety when I do I guess. In any case, they're pretty easy to register if you don't lick the boot. Whatever state you're in typically isn't gonna come after you for tax evasion for an object they aren't in the business of taxing if you catch my drift.
- Lvl999Noob 4mo ago
  > if you catch my drift Not OP but I don't. What do you mean? How do you make the kei truck an object they aren't in the business of taxing when they are, in fact, in that very business? Or maybe I have some deeper confusion about the issue here.
  - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
    > What do you mean? I think they mean it’s easier than many of us suspect to register an imported car as something close enough and get away with it. The most challenging bit would probably be maintenance.
    - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
      I meant just register it in one of the slightly less than half of states that let you do that. Even if some Karen narcs on you to the tax man unless it's an especially slow day the tax man will say something along the lines of "It's a what? We don't register those" The registration/tax people aren't in the business of giving a shit about the nuances of the vehicle code. They're in the business of collecting money. It's not like you're dodging meaningful fees on an entire truck fleet. You're dodging what would be a zero to them since they'd never let you register it. What are they gonna do send you one of those "we believe you owe us X, pay up or we'll use the full force of the state to fucking stomp you and ruin your life" letters with X= $0. I'm sure they'll get right on that.

laurencerowe 4mo ago

Cars in the US cost pretty much the same before taxes as in Europe. If Ford can build this truck in the US for this cost there seems little reason it couldn’t build it in the EU for a similar cost. Whether it will offer this body style or not is of course another question (Ford have stopped selling all regular cars in US, only offering crossovers, SUVs and trucks.) This is rather different to the perceived threat of cheap imports from China.