That's not the entire truth. The government could abolish (or pause) the "debt brake" or raise taxes, however neither option is acceptable to the so-called liberal party that is effectively acting as the king maker in this coalition (being the smallest partner but also ideologically distant enough to be the most at risk of breaking rank, which they threaten constantly). They also resist any cuts to subsidies for sectors their donors care about (which is why 1/3 the cuts to "climate damaging subsidies" affect agriculture despite only like 10% of those subsidies in total being for agriculture). They would however be perfectly fine cutting social welfare programs, of course, and were happy depleting the budget used to subsidize the "49€ ticket" for public transit (which was based on a test run of a "9€ ticket" and has already been announced to go up in price in the near future).
So with the "liberals" preventing tax increases (or resuming the existing wealth tax that was put on hold decades ago), preventing cuts to subsidies to fossils and also preventing any action agains the "debt brake", there's not much the government can do.
It's important to note that the "debt brake" is entirely self-imposed and the government can legally suspend it as would be warranted in an economic downturn (which requires investment as austerity is widely known to be ineffective to the point of being self-destructive unless your goal is to just privatize everything and tank the economy further) or during a major crisis (which I believe was the justification for the "special military budget" conjured out of thin air after the invasion of Ukraine or for the temporary suspension during the pandemic). Arguably even the climate catastrophe would qualify if we were taking it more seriously. The entire justification for the "debt brake" was to pay off debt during an economic boom to have more wiggle room during an economic downturn - except that justification completely went out of the window once inflation started going up and now it's just treated as self-justified and not to be questioned.
The auto industry has a huge amount of influence in Germany. Consumers are probably less bothered - all subsidy programs have an end, and people know this. However, the auto industry claiming "woe is us, the economy will crash, because we are so important"? That's the backlash.
Germany has a deficit problem. They are expecting to run a deficit of 4.25% this year, when 3% is the upper limit if there is no emergency. This is partly because the courts have prohibited them from basically stealing 60 billion euros (unneeded emergency Covid funding - no, you can't just add it to the regular budget). It's good to see them tightening their belt. Long-term, one can dream that they might streamline their bureaucracy.
p.s. Since there are lots of USAians here: The USA is running the highest deficits of any developed country (including infamous Japan). See the latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, page 50 (https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/fiscal-monito...). Y'all might want to plug that leak...
> Since there are lots of USAians here: The USA is running the highest deficits of any developed country (including infamous Japan). See the latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, page 50 (https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/fiscal-monito...). Y'all might want to plug that leak...
And while the USA is attracting a huge amount of investment with their IRA, Germany is losing parts of their industry (chemical industry and other high energy industries investing no longer in Germany) and is also jeopardizing their efforts to attract (for example) chip makers. I am not so sure your analysis is covering all the relevant points.
Two countries on the top of the geopolitical power rankings have the most debt, and that seems expected and normal to me.
Your ability to take on debt reflects other people’s willingness to lend to you, as well as your ability to turn today’s money into a larger amount of tomorrow’s money.
Which governments are more reliable borrowers than the US or Japan? Is there a safer currency than US Dollars more likely to maintain its value that you’d rather be paid back in?
That rule isn’t being enforced.
The rule in question is a domestic German deficit limit that requires governments to only spend more during emergencies or recessions, which ironically Germany has just officially entered.
The requirement also says nothing about not being allowed to raise taxes or reactivate the wealth tax so the problem isn't really that they need to "reduce the budget" just that they're not allowed to add debt and the tiniest coalition partner is threatening to jump ship if they raise taxes or cut subsidies to that party's donors (especially fossil, car manufacturers and air travel).
US debt in practical terms is financed by creditors showing up for treasury auctions. The biggest two holders of our treasury bills, Japan and China, are scaling down how much they’re willing to purchase.
If the world appetite for these instruments dries up we’re in serious trouble, either we default or we print money and inflation takes off again.
At the same time there are Thucydides trap advocates in DC that are bent on ensuring we remain the greatest great power, and are antagonizing China in an effort to keep America as the hegemon. China could just decide not to buy any more debt, or even worse, sell the debt it has and make the market for US debt even more unfavorable for the US.
Economic forces are incentivizing cooperation but political forces are rejecting it.
The situation with the US debt is serious, but the way you present it - as just a matter of China decision to collapse US is not correct.
There are very good reasons the vast majority of the world countries, companies and rich people invests in US government debt. China, Japan and the other investors will be hard pressed to find an alternative.
Cooperation with a country like China is very hard and often impossible. The second they smell weakness in the West they'll start pushing smaller countries around, building military bases across the world, potentially invade Taiwan, etc.
Pay attention to the Pie Chart and not the map just below it which is the part often shared to claim that China owns "too much" US debt. The map doesn't include domestic investment because it would break the color scale at roughly 9.45 Trillion (nearly 10x Chinese investment according to the map's scale and nearly 1000x above the lowest part of that scale). It probably needs an asterisk somewhere directly in the graphic mentioning that instead of accidentally implying that the US has less domestic investment than Chinese investment.
21% held by international investors is still an interestingly large number, but certainly not "the US ends if Chinese investors start to get cold feet" that a lot of pop culture has come to think of it as. (That's still not a good political reason to think you should antagonize China, but it isn't exactly "mutually assured destruction" economically speaking for those that seem intent on antagonizing China.)
Don't forget: most US investors have some mix of US treasury bonds in their retirement plans, even as most of the US has migrated from pensions (which in their best years conservatively kept mixes heavily favoring US bonds) to more self-guided 401ks. Having some mixture of US bonds remains a standard practice for the US investor and the 401k market is still buying bonds because they are still a good investment for their risk profile.
I am in favor of deficit spending. EU countries should be allowed to do more of it. I simply don’t believe that belt-tightening is “good,” both in general and especially as fighting climate is an important cause.
> Germany's plans to get 15 million electric cars on the road by 2030.
That's such a bad metric. Increasing the number of cars on the road is not good from an environmental perspective. Reducing the number of cars burning fossil fuels is.
Equivalent to a net win that could easily be gotten by replacing SUVs by other petroleum-powered vehicles with a more reasonable carbon footprint, without the need to build completely new infrastructure.
Excess power is curtailed when there is no demand and power prices go negative (to stop the production). This happens 200M+ times in US, must be the same even in EU grid. EVs can absorb all this excess production. No need to build any net new capacity. And, EVs will accelerate renewables by providing flexible demand, making renewable more profitable.
This conveniently ignores the location of the pollutants, not to mention the difference in difficulty with recapturing pollution particles from many small, vs few big sources.
Even if the electrical grid is only run on coal, the end result is still less pollution, especially in dense population centers
But you don't make money by reducing the number of cars. You make money by increasing the number of cars. The car lobby would never approve a plan that resulted in fewer cars overall unless it can be done in a way to still increase profits (e.g. by reimbursing manufacturers for lost sales).
When the German government wanted to reduce the number of fuel inefficient old cars on the road it didn't just pass a bill permitting cities to create "clean air zones" placing limits on particles in car exhausts, they also created a subsidy "scrap bonus" for trading in older vehicles when buying new ones (instead of resale those cars would then be scrapped for which the salesperson would be reimbursed).
In a way the "e-vehicle" subsidies are even worse because they don't even require a trade-in, they just subsidize putting more cars on the road and especially buying smaller electric cars for short distance commutes that are more likely to move people off public transit or bikes than existing ICE cars.
Maybe. At the risk of being argumentative: This top-down alarmism now has been going on for decades. Electric vehicles have close to zero market share, all considered (commercial and commuter unit of mass travelled). It could go away tonmorrow and the world wouldn't miss it.
We're talking about today's and tomorrow's subsidies. Electric's supposed leverage, not assuming authoritarian market interference, isn't on the visible horizon.
Again, depends on which timeframe you're operating on, of course. A solution to the "alarmism" will happen, whether that's EV's or not. And there was a time when the iphone was just 1% of the market ...
And listen, I get it. I'm divided on EV's. On the one hand, I think they're necessary to help sustain our planet. All things equal, I'd advocate for them just to avoid pollution in our childrens lungs. That is 'alarming' enough to me not counting any concern for the impact of climate change.
On the other hand, I get the love of proper cars and wouldn't want to give that up.
For me the happy medium, is having basic, smart and comfotable, affordable EV's during the week (nothing as advanced as a Tesla, which I hope die out, they're complete overkill to what's needed and what we have capacity for). If the majority had this, then we could easily justify thrashing a V8 at the weekend and at the track to enjoy ourselves. To enjoy actual cars.
Germany is legit the one country in the western hemisphere doing the most damage to the future, and I am surprised how nobody calls them out on it.
1)Turning off nuclear and cancelling plans for new plants because literally their party, the "green party" originated as an anti nuclear party, so of course they don't care and just do it for political reasons.
2)E-Vehicles from US and China threatening Germany's old guard that refuses to adapt? who cares about the environment then.
Remember them falsifying reports and getting away with a slap in the wrist?
Don't think they are doing most damage. Their CO2 emission per capita are a lot lower than US. They didn't recently have a president speaking about "clean coal". They have a huge amount of solar and wind power generation. A lot of modern renewable technology came from German companies and engineers. They don't build new coal power stations.
Germany's old guard manufacturers are definitely behind Chinese EV companies, but they seem much more publicly willing to adapt to EVs than US' old guard car companies. Neither Ford nor GM have committed publicly to an "EV or bust" date, but VW Group and Mercedes-Benz both have publicly committed to selling nothing but EVs starting in 2025. (They seem to be on track for that, too. So far.) BMW is the odd duck left in Germany still on the EV fence (and also still flirting with hydrogen fuel cells [in partnership with Toyota] as recently as 2022, lol), but also represent a fraction of the sales of VW Group and Mercedes-Benz brands.
> Remember them falsifying reports and getting away with a slap in the wrist?
The EPA settlements were much more interesting than a "slap on the wrist". They paid for the vast majority of America's second largest EV charging network (Electrify America). They are also a big part of the "catch-up" R&D funds behind why both VW Group and Mercedes-Benz believe they will make nothing but EVs starting around 2025. VW Group's now heralded MEB platform, especially, is somewhat directly a product of US EPA financial engineering and maybe doesn't exist without the EPA settlement requirements.
It's almost too bad US manufacturers weren't caught cheating in the same way/at the same time to have the EPA also require them to do similar things in a similar way.
The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine.
It doesn't even matter if people don't get rid of their petrol boxes, as long as they are kept as a second car for the very rare long-distance trip.
I refuse to believe that people wouldn't get attracted to a small and INEXPENSIVE small electric car for daily usage and commuting. We just need to sell them on this: keep your ICE if you want, we don't care as long as you get this cheap electrical econo-box. Yes, it only gets some 60-80 miles of range, but we are not telling you to get rid of your SUV, you can keep it, this is your SECOND car.
> The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine.
That's not true.
There are many electrical cars that definitively NOT luxury. Heck, I don't consider my Tesla a luxury vehicle when I compare it to vehicles from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc.
On "impractical acceleration" - isn't that just a consequence of the technology? I suppose we can mandate artificial limits on acceleration, but it isn't an effect of a "luxury" denotation.
Humungous range: EVs have much less range than fossil fuel counterparts.
I think your framing of EVs as luxury is unfounded. Pricey perhaps, but that is a different matter.
Agree with your point about a marketplace for EVs with less range and consequently less battery capacity needs (also less impactful on the environment), and there are cars offered of that segment, but I maybe they're much less popular?
The problem with that line of thinking is, that while your proposition ("[...] people would be attracted to [...] inexpensive cars [...]") is likely correct, that's not an offer that is possible to make. The luxurious cars you talk about have _half_ their value in their battery. Even if you strip out any profit, and get by with a quarter of the range of a Tesla, even then it won't be 10x cheaper.
And everything in that scenario is insane: The no profit part is obvious, but even the 4x less range is insane (as in it doesn't cover the daily commute safely anymore). Because 4x less range does not give you a 25% battery, because there is some overhead (mainly heating). On the other hand you have huge amounts of money sunk into the tooling around "classic" cars, that investment is being financed both over a lot of generations and an insane number of cars.
That being said: Cheaper EVs are coming. Both from a production point of view (battery costs decrease, more tooling and ultimately capacity is being build up), but also from an market point of view as the secondary market of EVs is just starting to come alive (it's only now that used and new EVs start to differ meaningfully in price) and also from a purely economic point of view in the sense that EVs are far cheaper to operate, so they don't _actually_ need to be price competitive at point of sale
>We just need to sell them on this: keep your ICE if you want, we don't care as long as you get this cheap electrical econo-box.
Magnanimous
Sarcasm aside, keep in mind that cheap isn't cheap. Even "cheap" cars are often priced at the the annual takehome pay of most of the population. The only thing that made them "cheap" was cheap financing, which has gone away and isn't returning. If one introduces a geopolitics lens, it isn't returning for the same reason that Germany will no longer offer the subsidy. Which is a way of preferencing fossil fuels and their suppliers.
If the West is massively pro renewables, then why would Germany, specifically, do this? Why is the West so histrionic for "clean energy"? The assertion that politicians care about people and living spaces very much is the toughest sell.
Moving on: if governments want to disincentivize petroleum use without rank authoritarianism, soon they will have to subsidize or otherwise provide auto lending. Also, maybe offer subsidies for maintenance and charging.
People don't buy ICE cars because they have an ICE. They buy them because they meet (perceived) needs, styling, and like 1000 other reasons.
Take any EV on the market and ask if people would buy it for close to that price if it had an ICE. For the vast majority (not all), the answer is just plain no.
Build the cars that people want, that just happen to be EV.
I read some analysis that we should be promoting plug-in hybrids rather than electric vehicles. That would spread limited batteries over more cars. A range of 50 mi would be enough for most commutes. Long drives would be covered by fossil fuels.
The result would more people using electric than current electric cars or your proposal of local electric and ICE vehicle. The question is if it is worth pushing now. It might make sense to have incentives cover plug-in hybrids and push car companies to switch existing models.
I bought a Chevrolet Bolt EUV to replace the Honda Odyssey van I had. I'm consistently pleased with how I'm able to fit into parking spaces that other people cannot. 95% of the time it's just me, 4% it's me and my wife, the rest are when my children are home from college.
I do wish that the Bolt charged faster. My 200 miles (charging up to 80% of the battery capacity) of range in warmer months is now 150 miles but this has been an issue (meaning I had to fast charge to get home) only once so far this winter.
I miss the smoother ride (the van had a much longer wheelbase) of the van over speed bumps, even at slow speeds. But my only interest in a bigger car would be to protect myself in the case of a collision with a Ford Lightning or similarly-sized vehicle.
I don't understand the current news and the pointless debate. Germans knew this at the beginning of the year, if not even earlier. And there is no anger. None. Four out of a hundred people are angry about it while a majority wouldn't have gone for an EV anyway.
A lot were thinking about buying a hybrid but the general population believes that the minute enough people have EVs, parts will start to break "in series" so that the manufacturers can increase profits.
Yes, there are articles and bits on TV and the internet about how maintenance costs of EVs are up to a third lower than usual but it's really hard to believe politicians and manufacturers after things like cum-ex, the wirecard and the diesel scandal.
Now, none of this talk and checking statistics will result in anything but more distrust into authorities, the industry or the media, that is, if you dive deeper than the surface and the nonsense German economists are babbling on TV.
The subsidies are probably going to return, the latest with the next Bundestag, who will then be celebrated as being on the side of the people, while also being slightly or much more right wing, either more or less openly or secretly under the hood.
This whole debate is nothing but a preparation for the next election and to elevate the "conservative" parties.
I hope they'll invest the money in better directions like bike paths or, or, f*** fixing DB once and for all??? How come their train infra is in such a poor state? And it's not like they don't have a neighbor ranking among the best countries regarding rail infra...
46 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 92.6 ms ] threadSo with the "liberals" preventing tax increases (or resuming the existing wealth tax that was put on hold decades ago), preventing cuts to subsidies to fossils and also preventing any action agains the "debt brake", there's not much the government can do.
It's important to note that the "debt brake" is entirely self-imposed and the government can legally suspend it as would be warranted in an economic downturn (which requires investment as austerity is widely known to be ineffective to the point of being self-destructive unless your goal is to just privatize everything and tank the economy further) or during a major crisis (which I believe was the justification for the "special military budget" conjured out of thin air after the invasion of Ukraine or for the temporary suspension during the pandemic). Arguably even the climate catastrophe would qualify if we were taking it more seriously. The entire justification for the "debt brake" was to pay off debt during an economic boom to have more wiggle room during an economic downturn - except that justification completely went out of the window once inflation started going up and now it's just treated as self-justified and not to be questioned.
Germany has a deficit problem. They are expecting to run a deficit of 4.25% this year, when 3% is the upper limit if there is no emergency. This is partly because the courts have prohibited them from basically stealing 60 billion euros (unneeded emergency Covid funding - no, you can't just add it to the regular budget). It's good to see them tightening their belt. Long-term, one can dream that they might streamline their bureaucracy.
p.s. Since there are lots of USAians here: The USA is running the highest deficits of any developed country (including infamous Japan). See the latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, page 50 (https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/fiscal-monito...). Y'all might want to plug that leak...
And while the USA is attracting a huge amount of investment with their IRA, Germany is losing parts of their industry (chemical industry and other high energy industries investing no longer in Germany) and is also jeopardizing their efforts to attract (for example) chip makers. I am not so sure your analysis is covering all the relevant points.
Your ability to take on debt reflects other people’s willingness to lend to you, as well as your ability to turn today’s money into a larger amount of tomorrow’s money.
Which governments are more reliable borrowers than the US or Japan? Is there a safer currency than US Dollars more likely to maintain its value that you’d rather be paid back in?
US debt in practical terms is financed by creditors showing up for treasury auctions. The biggest two holders of our treasury bills, Japan and China, are scaling down how much they’re willing to purchase.
If the world appetite for these instruments dries up we’re in serious trouble, either we default or we print money and inflation takes off again.
At the same time there are Thucydides trap advocates in DC that are bent on ensuring we remain the greatest great power, and are antagonizing China in an effort to keep America as the hegemon. China could just decide not to buy any more debt, or even worse, sell the debt it has and make the market for US debt even more unfavorable for the US.
Economic forces are incentivizing cooperation but political forces are rejecting it.
There are very good reasons the vast majority of the world countries, companies and rich people invests in US government debt. China, Japan and the other investors will be hard pressed to find an alternative.
Cooperation with a country like China is very hard and often impossible. The second they smell weakness in the West they'll start pushing smaller countries around, building military bases across the world, potentially invade Taiwan, etc.
And if China sells some of that debt other countries are more then happy to buy it. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/foreign-holdings-us-treas...
The US would prefer to have a better relationship with China but Chinese threats to invade independent country of Taiwan make it very difficult
Pay attention to the Pie Chart and not the map just below it which is the part often shared to claim that China owns "too much" US debt. The map doesn't include domestic investment because it would break the color scale at roughly 9.45 Trillion (nearly 10x Chinese investment according to the map's scale and nearly 1000x above the lowest part of that scale). It probably needs an asterisk somewhere directly in the graphic mentioning that instead of accidentally implying that the US has less domestic investment than Chinese investment.
21% held by international investors is still an interestingly large number, but certainly not "the US ends if Chinese investors start to get cold feet" that a lot of pop culture has come to think of it as. (That's still not a good political reason to think you should antagonize China, but it isn't exactly "mutually assured destruction" economically speaking for those that seem intent on antagonizing China.)
Don't forget: most US investors have some mix of US treasury bonds in their retirement plans, even as most of the US has migrated from pensions (which in their best years conservatively kept mixes heavily favoring US bonds) to more self-guided 401ks. Having some mixture of US bonds remains a standard practice for the US investor and the 401k market is still buying bonds because they are still a good investment for their risk profile.
That's such a bad metric. Increasing the number of cars on the road is not good from an environmental perspective. Reducing the number of cars burning fossil fuels is.
Only if it's matched by a sufficient switch to renewables instead of fossil fuel generation.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/03/30/yes-electr...
Even if the electrical grid is only run on coal, the end result is still less pollution, especially in dense population centers
When the German government wanted to reduce the number of fuel inefficient old cars on the road it didn't just pass a bill permitting cities to create "clean air zones" placing limits on particles in car exhausts, they also created a subsidy "scrap bonus" for trading in older vehicles when buying new ones (instead of resale those cars would then be scrapped for which the salesperson would be reimbursed).
In a way the "e-vehicle" subsidies are even worse because they don't even require a trade-in, they just subsidize putting more cars on the road and especially buying smaller electric cars for short distance commutes that are more likely to move people off public transit or bikes than existing ICE cars.
Deal?
We're talking about today's and tomorrow's subsidies. Electric's supposed leverage, not assuming authoritarian market interference, isn't on the visible horizon.
And listen, I get it. I'm divided on EV's. On the one hand, I think they're necessary to help sustain our planet. All things equal, I'd advocate for them just to avoid pollution in our childrens lungs. That is 'alarming' enough to me not counting any concern for the impact of climate change.
On the other hand, I get the love of proper cars and wouldn't want to give that up.
For me the happy medium, is having basic, smart and comfotable, affordable EV's during the week (nothing as advanced as a Tesla, which I hope die out, they're complete overkill to what's needed and what we have capacity for). If the majority had this, then we could easily justify thrashing a V8 at the weekend and at the track to enjoy ourselves. To enjoy actual cars.
Anyway ... just p1ssing in the wind.
1)Turning off nuclear and cancelling plans for new plants because literally their party, the "green party" originated as an anti nuclear party, so of course they don't care and just do it for political reasons.
2)E-Vehicles from US and China threatening Germany's old guard that refuses to adapt? who cares about the environment then.
Remember them falsifying reports and getting away with a slap in the wrist?
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-bri...
> Remember them falsifying reports and getting away with a slap in the wrist?
The EPA settlements were much more interesting than a "slap on the wrist". They paid for the vast majority of America's second largest EV charging network (Electrify America). They are also a big part of the "catch-up" R&D funds behind why both VW Group and Mercedes-Benz believe they will make nothing but EVs starting around 2025. VW Group's now heralded MEB platform, especially, is somewhat directly a product of US EPA financial engineering and maybe doesn't exist without the EPA settlement requirements.
It's almost too bad US manufacturers weren't caught cheating in the same way/at the same time to have the EPA also require them to do similar things in a similar way.
It doesn't even matter if people don't get rid of their petrol boxes, as long as they are kept as a second car for the very rare long-distance trip.
I refuse to believe that people wouldn't get attracted to a small and INEXPENSIVE small electric car for daily usage and commuting. We just need to sell them on this: keep your ICE if you want, we don't care as long as you get this cheap electrical econo-box. Yes, it only gets some 60-80 miles of range, but we are not telling you to get rid of your SUV, you can keep it, this is your SECOND car.
That's not true.
There are many electrical cars that definitively NOT luxury. Heck, I don't consider my Tesla a luxury vehicle when I compare it to vehicles from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc.
On "impractical acceleration" - isn't that just a consequence of the technology? I suppose we can mandate artificial limits on acceleration, but it isn't an effect of a "luxury" denotation.
Humungous range: EVs have much less range than fossil fuel counterparts.
I think your framing of EVs as luxury is unfounded. Pricey perhaps, but that is a different matter.
Agree with your point about a marketplace for EVs with less range and consequently less battery capacity needs (also less impactful on the environment), and there are cars offered of that segment, but I maybe they're much less popular?
And everything in that scenario is insane: The no profit part is obvious, but even the 4x less range is insane (as in it doesn't cover the daily commute safely anymore). Because 4x less range does not give you a 25% battery, because there is some overhead (mainly heating). On the other hand you have huge amounts of money sunk into the tooling around "classic" cars, that investment is being financed both over a lot of generations and an insane number of cars.
That being said: Cheaper EVs are coming. Both from a production point of view (battery costs decrease, more tooling and ultimately capacity is being build up), but also from an market point of view as the secondary market of EVs is just starting to come alive (it's only now that used and new EVs start to differ meaningfully in price) and also from a purely economic point of view in the sense that EVs are far cheaper to operate, so they don't _actually_ need to be price competitive at point of sale
Magnanimous
Sarcasm aside, keep in mind that cheap isn't cheap. Even "cheap" cars are often priced at the the annual takehome pay of most of the population. The only thing that made them "cheap" was cheap financing, which has gone away and isn't returning. If one introduces a geopolitics lens, it isn't returning for the same reason that Germany will no longer offer the subsidy. Which is a way of preferencing fossil fuels and their suppliers.
If the West is massively pro renewables, then why would Germany, specifically, do this? Why is the West so histrionic for "clean energy"? The assertion that politicians care about people and living spaces very much is the toughest sell.
Moving on: if governments want to disincentivize petroleum use without rank authoritarianism, soon they will have to subsidize or otherwise provide auto lending. Also, maybe offer subsidies for maintenance and charging.
Take any EV on the market and ask if people would buy it for close to that price if it had an ICE. For the vast majority (not all), the answer is just plain no.
Build the cars that people want, that just happen to be EV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle
The result would more people using electric than current electric cars or your proposal of local electric and ICE vehicle. The question is if it is worth pushing now. It might make sense to have incentives cover plug-in hybrids and push car companies to switch existing models.
I do wish that the Bolt charged faster. My 200 miles (charging up to 80% of the battery capacity) of range in warmer months is now 150 miles but this has been an issue (meaning I had to fast charge to get home) only once so far this winter.
I miss the smoother ride (the van had a much longer wheelbase) of the van over speed bumps, even at slow speeds. But my only interest in a bigger car would be to protect myself in the case of a collision with a Ford Lightning or similarly-sized vehicle.
A lot were thinking about buying a hybrid but the general population believes that the minute enough people have EVs, parts will start to break "in series" so that the manufacturers can increase profits.
Yes, there are articles and bits on TV and the internet about how maintenance costs of EVs are up to a third lower than usual but it's really hard to believe politicians and manufacturers after things like cum-ex, the wirecard and the diesel scandal.
Now, none of this talk and checking statistics will result in anything but more distrust into authorities, the industry or the media, that is, if you dive deeper than the surface and the nonsense German economists are babbling on TV.
The subsidies are probably going to return, the latest with the next Bundestag, who will then be celebrated as being on the side of the people, while also being slightly or much more right wing, either more or less openly or secretly under the hood.
This whole debate is nothing but a preparation for the next election and to elevate the "conservative" parties.
Fossil fuel subsidies are sacrosanct. 7T subsidies just in 2022: https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...