The car lie and the gas lie are damaging Germany
The European Union had decided that from 2035 onwards, only electric cars would be allowed on the road in the EU, with no more combustion engines. This was a clear directive for German car manufacturers.
The future is electric
The direction was clear: the future is electric. And European car manufacturers were in the process of catching up with the Chinese and Tesla in terms of electric car production, something they had neglected for far too long.
But now Chancellor Merz has intervened: in a letter, he asked the EU Commission to soften the ban on combustion engines. And the EU Commission gave in to the German Chancellor’s pressure. The EU has just announced that emissions are to be reduced by only 90 per cent by 2035, rather than 100 per cent as previously decided. Greenpeace calls this proposal, which still has to be approved by the EU Parliament, ‘an early Christmas present to Chinese car manufacturers’.
This has once again unsettled the German car industry. What appears to help in the short term is damaging in the long term. Leading economists also fear this, pointing to renewed uncertainty among German car manufacturers. A zigzag course always damages the economy. But once again, politicians seem to value small short-term advantages over real long-term prospects for the future.
This car lie by the Chancellor is just as damaging to Germany as the gas lie by Economics Minister Reiche. As a former gas manager, she wants to build far more natural gas power plants than experts calculate are needed. Just as electric cars are the future of mobility, renewables are the future of the entire energy sector, not fossil natural gas.
Facts determine the future and favourable prices, not yesterday’s illusions. The price of producing one kilowatt hour of photovoltaic electricity has fallen by around 95 per cent over the last 25 years. This is a unique and sensational success in the entire history of industry.
Here are the facts: Renewable energies accounted for 83 per cent of global capacity growth in 2022, 86 per cent in 2023 and 92.5 per cent in 2024. This incredible success is mainly due to the fact that renewable energies are unrivalled in terms of affordability. Even in the US, the solar market is booming despite the brakes being applied by the president, according to the British magazine The Economist. In the first half of 2025, the share of newly connected electricity capacity in the US was 91 per cent.
Mr President Trump: lies have short legs. You cannot change reality by constantly lying. Speaking before the UN, Trump claimed: ‘Those who rely on renewable energies are destroying themselves.’ As with so many things with this president, the opposite is true.
The sun is stronger than Donald Trump. But the EU and the German government are also deceiving themselves if they think they need to slow down the spread of electric cars and renewable energies. In doing so, they are damaging not only sustainable jobs, but also the environment, the economy and people’s health. Already today, millions of people in poor countries are dying every year as a result of climate change caused by the rich.
The positive message: Even with its latest decision, the EU will not stop the triumph of electric cars, but at most delay it somewhat.
Despite misguided policies, electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines, electricity storage and solar-generated hydrogen are booming in Germany and around the world. The energy transition from below can no longer be stopped.
Der Spiegel author Christian Stöcker (‘Men Who Burn the World’) writes: ‘The markets are already shifting… Money has long been flowing in a different, better direction, even if many people in this country have not noticed.’ We are currently witnessing the beginning of the solar world revolution – and the dawn of a new era for humanity.
Source
Franz Alt 2025| Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
