The meme captures the absolute frustration in Europe and the rest of the world for our spiralling costs. Costs arising directly from the elected President illegally attacking Iran, without discussing with anyone but Israel.
We’re not arguing who has the greater car / truck dependency. But for those still wanting to pursue the point, don’t forget that Europeans pay considerably more taxes for our public services and so more tax now too.
This is true, but the risks of the oil economy have been known for a very long time. Everybody knows that the oil/auto fuel supply chain is in areas with fragile geopolitical relations and it’s not like this hasn’t happened before.
What we should be doing is channeling our frustration toward transitioning from ICE automobiles to EVs[1], but look at how slowly European carmakers are adapting. The rate of change in Germany has been embarrassingly slow and China is galaxies ahead of anyone else. We need to invest and compete, rather than throwing up our hands and blaming others for fucking up things we shouldn’t be depending on anymore.
I’m not really convinced China is that far ahead of everyone else in the EV market. Sure, they have cheap cars, but is the quality better? I haven’t tried a lot, but to me it seems the quality and features are pretty much the same as european, japanese or south korean. I just bought a Japanese car, because the BYD that was comparable but cheaper just felt like a toy car. Everything about the interior just felt like cheap plastic. The infotainment screen was a mess, and I had to go into 3 (3!) submenus to turn on the heated seats.
I’m not convinced the chinese cars are better. They’re comparable and cheap, but it’s not like they offer something no one else does.
The meme captures the absolute frustration in Europe and the rest of the world for our spiralling costs. Costs arising directly from the elected President illegally attacking Iran, without discussing with anyone but Israel.
We’re not arguing who has the greater car / truck dependency. But for those still wanting to pursue the point, don’t forget that Europeans pay considerably more taxes for our public services and so more tax now too.
This is true, but the risks of the oil economy have been known for a very long time. Everybody knows that the oil/auto fuel supply chain is in areas with fragile geopolitical relations and it’s not like this hasn’t happened before.
What we should be doing is channeling our frustration toward transitioning from ICE automobiles to EVs[1], but look at how slowly European carmakers are adapting. The rate of change in Germany has been embarrassingly slow and China is galaxies ahead of anyone else. We need to invest and compete, rather than throwing up our hands and blaming others for fucking up things we shouldn’t be depending on anymore.
[1]: and improving public transit too of course
I’m not really convinced China is that far ahead of everyone else in the EV market. Sure, they have cheap cars, but is the quality better? I haven’t tried a lot, but to me it seems the quality and features are pretty much the same as european, japanese or south korean. I just bought a Japanese car, because the BYD that was comparable but cheaper just felt like a toy car. Everything about the interior just felt like cheap plastic. The infotainment screen was a mess, and I had to go into 3 (3!) submenus to turn on the heated seats.
I’m not convinced the chinese cars are better. They’re comparable and cheap, but it’s not like they offer something no one else does.