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Comment by wtcactus | Hacker News Reader

Europe is willingly self sabotaging their industry and energy production, in the name of some completely irrational environmentalist ideology that states that saving the planet is achieved by making Europe poorer while allowing China, India and a few others to pollute without any restrictions.

So yeah, we are getting poorer by the day and on the brink of a major economic crisis. Just look at what is happening in Germany.

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European auto makers are failing because they can't make EVs that the market wants. And the market doesn't want their ICE vehicles either. They over-focused on very expensive high end EV vehicles. That's why they are hurting, it's not because it's EVs.

European ICE vehicles are losing out in China because people there don't want to buy any more gas vehicles, at least most people are getting there. VWAG is losing marketshare in every segment that I see. It's not green power that is killing them, it's not many good cheap vehicles that are killing them - gas or EV.

making a cheap EV (like the trabant/VW beetle for EV's) would be great.

Gas prices in europe are no joke, and considering we are basically in a hybrid war with one of the biggest oil producers for europe, getting rid of energy dependence would be great for europe, and having cheap EV's would be key to that.

So we are in agreement that cheap EVS would make sense for invigorating car sales in Europe. So why don't they do it? I think it's because they conclude they can't make any money if they make cheap EVS cuz the labor, batteries, components are too expensive or something for the lower profit per car world of cheaper vehicles.

American car companies have gotten addicted to selling huge more expensive cars as a way to keep profits up.

I still think the real goal is achieving energy indepedence, so that Europe does not have to import fosil fules from some very questionable and problematic countries.

Currently this also simulatenously gives those contries more money, so they can be even bigger pain in the ass in the future.

The sooner this flow can stop, the better.

On a per capita and historic basis the emissions of developing countries are dwarfed orders of magnitude by Europe and Western countries. Not to talk about all the land conquered by the same countries.

Are you interested in “saving the planet” or in making sure every country gets to pollute the same per capita on a historical basis?

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