Comment by mike_hearn
5 days ago
Their problems are created by the government mostly, so they can't do anything about them.
• Expensive energy (German government believes there is a climate crisis)
• Expensive labour (German government believes in prioritizing workers over companies)
• Expensive regulations (you get the picture)
They can't solve any of these problems because they are left wing imperatives, and the left would rather the German car industry die than give up on any of them. So all they can do is wait for the end, and/or hope the AfD somehow obtain a majority.
Just for your information, the AfD doesn't want to have cheap energy either. Nobody in Germany does, and that's the problem.
While the AfD wants to keep German lignite (half as cheap as any imported gas), it also wants gas. The point of coal is eliminating gas. Otherwise you're just polluting for no gain.
The point of coal is to make electricity and making sure it's cheap means using every resource you have. So I don't quite see how supporting the reopening of coal plants is not the AfD supporting cheap energy.
As I said, coal makes electricity cheaper if it can eliminate gas, like in China and India. Poland uses a lot of coal, but it doesn't help because it also uses a lot of gas nowadays.
Of course, there are geopolitical considerations. Germany thought that it could cut military spending by buying Russian gas, and Poland believes that it needs to buy American gas for protection. But none of them can compete with China.
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Volkswagen could’ve bought Tesla for the cost of the dieselgate fines, at the time of fining
Fair enough, but the German government doesn't force them to design shitty cars. That's 100% a management choice.
It forces them to do lots of things that lead to that outcome, for example it is hard to fire people.