Let's be honest: when you bought your last car or picked up the new company car - how did you go about it? Which motorization did you choose: The economical one or the one with the most power for your money? Have you decided on a vehicle that is as small and light as possible, or at least an SUV because it simply makes more sense? And Spartan accountant equipment or outfitted with comfort extras? And, last question: narrow low-rolling-resistance tires or the smart aluminum wheels with wide slippers, so that the car with its narrow tires does not stand there like the stork in the salad?
That's why I'm asking, because there's just a scream of pain in Germany. There are considerations of the Federal Environmental Agency, the tax benefits for diesel to delete and gasoline in principle more expensive. Reason for these considerations is the immutable fact that the transport sector is a massive problem in all efforts to avert the climate crisis yet somehow. While CO2 emissions are falling in many other areas, it is continuing to increase in the transport sector.
Nevertheless, all thinking games for countermeasures reliably lead to a storm of indignation. ADAC boss Gerhard Hillebrand, so to speak the board of the German car driver souls, conjures up social unrest in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, ignoring the real problem: "The ADAC also wants progress in climate protection, but mobility must remain affordable ...", he says , It is a basic rule of conflict communication that everything that is said before a "but" is not meant seriously. The ADAC, so to speak, stands with its position, which ignores the seriousness of the situation, in serious concern to Klimaleugnern.
Main sporty
Yes, it is true: There are many regions in Germany where the car as a means of transport has so far been difficult to replace. Many of the new mobility offers that are currently on everyone's lips exist only in urban areas and metropolitan areas. In many places there is not even a significant public transport available. Nevertheless, the assumption that high fuel prices are unfair or, as Hillebrand fables, "beyond good and evil" is wrong. Because in truth, people do not care about the price of gas. Or how have you, who is currently upset about a possible premium of 70 cents, answered the questions at the beginning of the text?
Fact is: If the price of gas was a critical size and of such existence-threatening importance as Hillebrand and co-thinkers conjure, the Germans would buy other cars. There would not be quarter by quarter rising sales for SUVs. The Lupo 3L, the first, true three-liter car from Volkswagen, would not have entered the automobile history as a complete flop. The offer of the manufacturers would be completely different.
Given the now widely discussed and scientifically validated threats posed by the climate crisis, one can hardly believe the hubris if one deals with the model policy and, above all, the German manufacturers. At the bottom of the portfolio, the last mass model is also sent to the house tuner, so that it will be spanked athletically there. At the upper end of the product scale is escalated with mega SUVs such as X7, Audi Q8 or Mercedes GLS. But the manufacturers are only part of the problem. Because these cars are just no shelf warmer as the fuel economy models, they have - embarrassed, but mostly anyway - on offer. The, forgive me please at this point the battle term, gas guzzlers are torn from the manufacturers. And that is our responsibility.
We fail, day after day
Given how sloppily we handle this responsibility, the resistance to any form of regulation is incomprehensible. The steering effect of the customers, which one can confidently account for after the past years, is at the very most zero, in truth probably rather negative. Anyone who argues against a restriction of freedom and a penchant for a ban on culture is simply naive.
Without the laboriously negotiated stricter CO2 limits of the EU, without the tighter WLTP metering, without mandatory emission measurements on the road instead of in the laboratory, there would be no development towards sustainability at all. The main motivation of manufacturers to thrust towards sustainable mobility - and they do so relatively openly - is the prospect of being able to meet the CO2 requirements with electric cars and avoid penalties. Without this regulation, we would probably continue to drive full throttle towards the abyss.
Incidentally, if the state were to break away from tax incentives for certain fossil fuels so that the fuel price would have a steering effect, that would not be a long-term ban. And it would not be a "crusade against the car," as Hillebrand screams. It would be something like a walker on the way to ecologically sound cars and we, the customers, would still have the full freedom. So, back to the beginning of this article. If you are about to buy a car or choose a company car, how will you decide?
