Indeed. I wonder what are the real reasons behind these bans in German nations. Can't believe it's just for political populism, there must be something more substantial.
In general, you may read up on the history of the anti nuclear movement. The idea was, officials said that nuclear is totally safe - people doubted it before that and then chernobyl was the turning point for many to not believe the government at all anymore, even though there had been big demonstration before that already.
The car industry had nothing to do with that. Rather, "populism" as you call it, or rather the strong opinion of many people living in a representative democracy somehow matters.
Also, it wasn't just opinion. There were violent clashes quite often, even with deaths. Driving the cost of it all up.
Germany is a country littered with voodoo "medicine" clinics, to the point that they have even been integrated in the statutory healthcare system. You take those hippie "nature above science" people and tell them about the invisible danger rays and they will found the Green party, and the rest is history.
Can you expand on what you mean by that? Also, generalizing "German" nations like this does seem a bit odd to me. Austria has a very clear and different history with nuclear power compared to Germany where it is only recently that they vowed to get rid of nuclear. For the latter case, it very much was due to events around the Fukushima nuclear accident what contributed greatly to the decision.
I think generally accepted nuclear power is a literal threat to the German automotive industry. MB, VW Group, BMW, and others are not ages ahead of Chinese manufacturers in EV sector like they are in case with ICE cars.
Germany intentionally did something that they knew will hurt its economy, there should be a very profound reason for taking such a hit. Who would be ok to take such a hit because of a "fear"?
My generalization about the German nations may be really inaccurate here, I just thought they all had a huge influence on each other (which affects lots of previous and future decisions).
But there are other reasons ofc including lobying from russia and auto industry
Today it's also a question of security and with what's going on I would guess Germany has no regret that they don't have these juicy targets available anymore.