Opinion
E-car market
Fight for the combustion engine: Sahra Wagenknecht’s swearing
Who would have thought? Combustion driver friend Sarah Wagenknecht joins the car debate.
© Martin Schutt/ / Picture Alliance
Now the BSW boss is also trying to get cheap votes by fighting against electromobility. The false facts that she spreads are having a destructive effect on the German automotive industry.
“It is better to hide your ignorance than to display it.” A sentence that sounds as if Heraclitus had it for him Written by Sahra Wagenknecht. The knowledge is around 2,500 years old, but has lost none of its validity.
The head of the so-called “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht” (BSW) is showing a lack of understanding precisely because she now also wants to overturn the ban on combustion engines, which is due to apply in the European Union from 2035. At the same time, she is talking about an apocalyptic future for the auto industry if her wishes are not followed. “A key industry and a lot of prosperity in Germany will be destroyed.” Rather, “more research into more fuel-efficient combustion engines” is needed.
So far, this pessimism has been known primarily from the FDP around Transport Minister Volker Wissing and party leader Christian Lindner, who apparently worry more about the spiritual well-being of their sports car clientele than about the climate. The CDU also attracted attention – but only since it was in the opposition. Chancellor Merkel stated in 2018 that Germany would become the “lead market” for electric cars and that German industry would be the “lead provider”. There was a lot of applause in the Union ranks.
Only through a trick are combustion engines still ahead
On the scientific side, the crucial question – combustion engine or electric car – has long been decided: the electric car is the vehicle of the future. Despite energy-intensive production, even the most economical combustion engines lose their ecological balance after just a few thousand kilometers; This period tends to become shorter and shorter because battery technology and resource consumption are improving significantly. Combustion engines are still ahead on paper today because they are not taken into account for the dramatic environmental consequences of extracting crude oil and the gigantic use of energy in the production of gasoline and diesel. People act as if the fuel comes directly from the pump and thus make light of the almost 140-year-old technology.
And if Wagenknecht had paid more attention in physics class at the “Albert Einstein” extended high school in Berlin-Marzahn in the 1980s, then she would quickly understand that an electric car per se conserves resources: it travels three to four times further with the same amount of energy than any combustion engine. This efficiency results from the fact that most of the energy in the combustion engine is wasted as heat. This is similar to the old light bulb: modern LED bulbs are around eight times more efficient. Everyone can feel this when it comes to their electricity bill.
The auto industry has long since made up its mind
So it can’t be a matter of reason when Wagenknecht and Co. are agitating against electric cars. Rather, the impulse behind this is to pander to the people in order to grab votes. This is likely to only be successful to a limited extent, because the image of electric cars is currently increasing among the population, as a Forsa survey shows. However, the Germans are admittedly not yet ready to invest in electric vehicles on a large scale at the moment. They perceive them as too expensive (which, when calculated over a lifetime, is not true, as many studies show). And they are afraid of not finding a free charging station, which is unfortunately often still true. At least for consumers without a home who cannot use their own wallbox. However, Germany is currently catching up quickly when it comes to charging infrastructure.
The German automotive industry leaves no doubt that the future belongs to electric cars. It has excellent managers and engineers (and excellent, most economical combustion engines in all vehicle classes that make us the envy of the world) who don’t need one thing these days: unsettling their learning customers through unqualified political chatter.
For every car manufacturer, a stable domestic market is an important prerequisite in order to be able to attack global markets. A loss of research, development and production of electric cars in our own country would be a drastic step backwards compared to the electric powers China and the USA. In this respect, Wagenknecht and Co. are doing the entire industry a disservice. If anyone is making life difficult for the auto industry, it’s combustion engine guys like them, who care first about themselves and only secondarily about the country. A holy simplicity that doesn’t help anyone.
On the contrary, the trashing of local qualities actually has an impact. Car broker Carwow has just published its annual customer survey, according to which half of those surveyed would choose a Chinese brand as their next car. They would have better offers, superior technology, more models and a greater range.