Europe

I think this article should be assumed more at the lobby of the combustion car industry with their conservative stubbornness and less against the individual Germans.

It's not just noise, and not just cars.

The sound of "fast" for me is a liquid cooled two stroke motorcycle engine. Imprinted on them in my teens. And the smell of "fast" is burned fully synthetic two stroke oil. It's been thirty years and I still get a positive emotional reaction to hearing and smelling a "modern" two stroke engine running.

These days I drive a "boring" emissions compliant diesel (not a VW 😜) and ride a four stroke. But I deeply understand the emotional connection people have to the sensory experience of their vehicles. For me it's freedom, excitement, speed, challenge.

Emotional support compensators which drink artisanal spirits.

Germany is the European country with the highest percentage of people who rent homes instead of owning them.

Which automatically means we're dependent on public charging infrastructure for our cars, which is woefully underdeveloped.

I would love to buy an electric car but it just doesn't make any sense. There's your real reason, dear French newspaper.

Some people just wants the familiar because we still have simplistic lizard brain. This even goes with manual and automatic cars, there are people who dismiss automatic cars and look down on its drivers. But the same people quickly change their minds once they drive automatic.

BS, the vast majority of German drivers are frugal about spending money for fuel and prefer efficiency over power. There will always be the minority gearheads who will scream the loudest.

As a German, many of my countrymen and -women are rather embarassing.

I doubt this is a majority speaking. A few people may be petrol heads and love the roaring sound of a v engine (or an underpowered r4 with a loud exhaust). Most Germans drive standard cars, where the manufacturer is trying to make the engine as writer and smooth as possible. Their real fear is that their electric car won't take them the 1500km to their holiday destination, without any stops, with a caravan in tow, which they will do once per year.

Many Germans - dozens even! I mean, you will always have internal combustion enthusiasts and that is ok - they should be free to practice their hobby so long as they don't bother others too much. But I imagine they would daily drive an ev on most days if they found it more convenient and drive their hobby cars on special occasions.

We move through life facing events that are emotionally hard to accept. It's built in like that.

It's not "emotionally hard to accept" it's financially hard to purchase.

German newspaper: french eat frog.

They have a deep relationship with trains too, but things are getting worse every year..

Muh big machine vroom vroom. Some people are so dumb 🤦🏻

BEV sales in France are 20% of cars sold and in Germany it is 19.1% in 2025. So it is pretty similar, but Germany has had much faster growth recently, so it is very possible that this is going to change this year.

I don’t know how valid it is these days, but when I was last in Germany in 1989, I asked my much older cousin about automatic vehicles.

Conceptually he knew what they were and that Americans drove them, but aside from large commercial vehicles - and it was rare at the time even there - he had never come across a consumer vehicle with an automatic transmission in his life. Like, everything at the time was stick and three pedals on the floor. Everything. If you wanted an automatic it had to be special-ordered and shipped in at significant expense from America or something like that

German here. Bought an electric Car. Can't avoid the future 😅

Our electric car is currently in the shop and we got a IC one as a replacement. I can't even express how much it annoys me to feel the car shift (at least its an automatic) and make noise when I accelerate. And that's a quality car, so it's muffled already.