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Comment by aszantu | Hacker News Reader

:( They give u 4k on a 32k car, but they wont give it to a 4k car from china

Are the Chinese EV golf carts I mean cars allowed in Germany? I thought their safety requirements were pretty tight. I can’t imagine some of them making it on the autobahn.

Cannot be more of a death trap than a Renault Twizzy which I see quite often around the city, or any motorcycle for that matter. As long as they don't market it as a normal car, I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed.

Motocycles require a different driving license in Germany, which is harder to get and for the powerful motorcycles has stricter age requirements (24 if you want >95 horsepower)

>more of a death trap than a Renault Twizzy

Are you referring to it as a death trap based on it's crash test performance or solely on the looks?

A Twizy is not a car legally. It's a L7e Leichtkraftfahrzeug which means it doesn't have to meet safety standards.

It is possible to make a safe lightweight car. DLR is proving it with their research.

That 4k chineese car is more of a burden than a gift. For once, I agree with the government subsidies.

I don't know anything about Germany but back in New York (the city), anything that has mass and occupies space is a burden. The rent is high and space is tight.

I didn't even own a desktop computer because I couldn't justify the space a dedicated computer space takes.

Thus, given the golf carts can't drive everywhere, you pretty much need a second car so I kind of agree with you. That being said, wasn't there some noise about free public transit? Maybe a small EV (not necessarily from China PR) is good enough in a pinch if the public transit is free of cost and reliable?

You're assuming the majority of people are rational. Cars are basically a religion in germany (with beer and football). You can compare that to the 2nd amendment in the US.

If the chinese car meets the european standards (crash test etc) you will get the subsidy.

link? The article doesn't mention anything about this.

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