Europe

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

German newspaper: french eat frog.

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

If you have difficulty letting go of your emotional attachment to vroom vroom, then you need to seek help

Hell,neven electrical cars are bad, they won't be THE solution, but try explaining that to car brains

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.

German here..... this is bullshit. Of course some people love combustion cars. But most people doesnt really care. Moste people care for price, safety, and functions.

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.

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

I would immediately buy an electric car if i had a loading station at home... with the loading infrastructur in germany and the costs, it's simply not viable for me.

My coworker has a home with solar on the roof and a wall box, he basicly drives for free.

I hear more and more people in Germany saying „my next car is going to be electric“ and sales are ramping up. This starts now that the tabloid media reduced their anti-propaganda and it’s generally not a big topic anymore. People don’t feel pushed anymore and can form their own opinion by seeing others live a normal life with electric cars.

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

Too bad for them?? We really love the sounds and looks of old steam trains but understand that they’re not the grandest for the environment so we prefer electric trains over all.

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

I'd argue that a lot of Germans are rightfully nostalgic about the quality of cars from before the automotive industry pioneered enshittification in the mid 2000s. Electric cars weren't even viable back then because of the state of battery technology. That only became decent well after all cars had already been thoroughly enshittified, so there is no way of buying a non enshittified electric car, because nobody is even making one.