[gibolt]

The German auto industry is 5% of their economy, employing nearly a million people. Imagine the fire (no pun intended) Tesla is setting under them, as the premium (most profitable) sales plummet across the industry.

They decided to subsidize the industry to drive growth and help their big players quickly get to scale where they can make a profit. The alternative is they cease to exist and Germany suffers.

I'm all for public transit, but people there won't stop buying cars. Might as well buy local.

[raxxorrax]

There is some truth to that but they already do make insane profits. This is just another icing on the cake that primarily tries to incentivize people that are already well off (as anyone that buys an electric cars right now).

While they certainly have deficiencies in the software department compared to Tesla and Germany not being the best place to test autonomous vehicles, they had electric cars for years now. The produced few because the market isn't really convinced yet.

Companies are the primary customers. Some of our workers use electric vehicles because they got a company car, but nobody owns one.

Apart from a nuclear apocalypse I don't really see the large manufacturers ceasing to exist anytime soon. They have enough capital to invest in development.

[sooenkill]

"They had electric cars for years." Yeah sure bro! You wanna buy our ugly looking i3? Nah too crazy design do you like the looks of any our 184 diesel models? havent really had much choice for evs