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.
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.
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.
I liken it to listening to your favorite band on headphones vs seeing them in concert. One experience is just hearing the song, the other you feel with your whole body.
As a German, many of my countrymen and -women are rather embarassing.
On this front, Italians do not behave differently.
The article generalizes to a dangerous degree. It‘s really just an opinion piece. You can say the same thing about every single country. All you have to do is find one person who feels attached to combustion engines.
Except speaking as a petrolhead… the germans are historically really fucking good at it.
I dont think that in the history of the automobile if you were to ask “What was the best car of the year” that it wouldnt be a german dominated list every year. Yes the Japanese would occasionally sit them on their ass and the Americans and Italians might get one or two. But building world class cars has been a big part of the german identity globally for the past hundred years.
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.
So pass a law that every rental property has to have a charger.
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.
No offence intended but Duh. People who are passionate about something dont want it banned. I’m one of those people and yes we will push back because we all know most of the worlds polution is caused by big buisness and industry. When people talk about banning ALL combustion engines it reads to me like “recycling will save the environment”
Most of the worlds driving population doesnt give a fuck about driving enjoyment or feel any real passion for driving or cars. The enthusiasts and enthusiast cars arent the lions share of the problem. If the electric grocery getters were significantly cheaper the vast majority of people will adopt them. Id gladly only take my petrol engine out for special occasions if I could also afford an EV to get stuck in traffic in.
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.
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.
Relevant (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPEmnVdDoCo
Also, this dads-having-something-to-prove mentality of driving without breaks is illegal and reckless.
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.
And they can do that with fast charging and there are enough fast chargers. This fear is going to go away, as friends and family members buy EVs. The sales numbers are pretty good and prices for EVs are falling, so this is probably going to happen in a lot of cases. Especially with “cheap” German branded EVs like the VW ID.Polo and new subsidies. Germany is past the early adopter phase for EVs and in the early mass market phase already.
A few people may be petrol heads and love the roaring sound of a v engine
old men, they will just die out.
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.
It‘s almost as if this heavily generalizing portrayal of Germans through a French lens is rather… emotional. Heh.
It’s a genre in France. Lazy stereotypes about Germans. I think Germans have many lazy stereotypes about Brazilians. Passing it on :)
I have never heard a fellow German talk about Brazil other than football to be honest. I guess that‘s a stereotype too but the reality is that Brazil isn‘t really in the general consciousness.
What would Europe be without French/German love-hate relationship.
with fuel at €1.72–€1.74/L, EVs make more sense than the cheap gas sold in North America. But, as EV fleet numbers increase, petrol prices will increase because of less volume sold and petrol stations will be rarer. Petrol drivers will start getting range anxiety.
That is going to take years. Petrol stations already have the infrastructure and mostly make their money from the small store and not selling petrol. Germany and most of Europe are densly populated, so refineries shutting down, is not going to cause that much of a logistics problem either. Sweden and Finland might see that happen though, due to being less densly populated.
It would require a massive drop in ICE cars on the road to increase petrol prices in a country like Germany. I very much doubt it is going to happen in the coming decade.
German newspaper: french eat frog.
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.
after riding in an electric car, every IC engine sounds like a tractor
And even the high quality ones overall feel so clumsy and rattling
We really get spoiled in our EVs, ngl.
Every time I drive: “Why can’t my car be more quiet?”
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.
At one point I will buy a used El Camino (the.most.useless.pickup), tinker with it, hopefully with my son (now 3 yo) put in a 400hp Chevrolet LS engine and never drive it unless it’s sunny.
For my daily use I seldom travel over 15 km. and currently use a petrol mini One and have Mazda6 estate for family travel (the amount of bulky stash traveling with a small child necessitates is mind-numbing)
An EV estate/ would cover both uses, so I totally agree with you
So fucking much this.
I think the world needs a version of the Japanese Kei car rules. You build a pure EV with a range of at least X, a maximum power of Y with a small footprint and we will make them intensely cheap to tax and insure. The market will sort itself out.
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