[Rinzler89]

> I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home

Most people in Germany can't afford to buy an apartment let alone build a new house and you're taking as if your situation si representative for the average German.

Just because you're wealthy enough to afford a new EV and to build a new modern house, doesn't eman Germany has no problems.

You're proving the point that ecology is a tax on the poor, as the wealthy can afford to buy EVs and build new well insulated homes with solar panels and heat pump making their running costs super low, while poor people who can't, will own older ICE cars and older homes that are much worse energy efficient meaning they'll pay way more in running costs than the rich despite having less income leading to ever increasing wealth inequality.

[SonicTheSith]

Even older homes, compared to the average US home is highly insulated.

I live in an Apartment building from 1964, got doubled sided windows, and during the winter I do not need to turn on any heating on 98% of the days. And the quality of housing there is no difference between owning and renting....

Now even the worst insulated homes, are not that far off. Sure there are some very very bad apartments for rent, but those are in the minority.

sure not many can afford an EV, but there is also a large part of the population does not own a car at all, because of public transit which is a way better reduction in the energy requirements per person. There are even a lot of people that own a car but go to work using public transit.

[Rinzler89]

>Even older homes, compared to the average US home is highly insulated.

Why are you comparing apples to oranges? Germans don't care what it's like in America since it doesn't lower their energy bills.

America can afford to be wasteful with energy, since it's energy independent, has much cheaper energy than Germany, including oil, gas, and nuclear, and has higher incomes. Germany doesn't. Cheap Russian gas is gone and their nuclear also so of course their energy is much more expensive to the point it affects industry and consumers more than in the US.

>but there is also a large part of the population does not own a car at al

Passenger car ownership has reached record highs in Germany. Outside of big dense cities with great public transport like Berlin where car owners are in the minority, the majority of people own a car statistically.

[gostintheshell]

There's apparently nothing worth comparing Germany to? They were reducing energy waste even when they had cheap gas, that makes them less part of the energy waste correlates to prosperity argument than the US and hence less about per capita energy use being a good thing.

[mmarq]

> Most people in Germany can't afford to buy an apartment

Most people in Germany don’t buy the apartments they live in, because renting in Germany gives you more or less the same rights as owning a leasehold flat in the UK. If you really want to buy a flat, tax-wise it is more convenient to rent it out and rent another one to live in.

In many cities there are rent control mechanisms that make renting extremely cheaper than buying.

[Rinzler89]

Owning gives you the advantage of not flushing away a third of your income down the drain and instead owning something that's yours by the time you retire instead of paying your landlord's lease and then retiring in poverty as you won't be able to afford rent on your pension.

Have you seen new rent prices right now? It's definitely not "extremely cheap". It's only extremely cheap for those in grandfathered contracts.

[mmarq]

A flat that cost 500-600K in Berlin would be rented out at 1000€ a month, that can’t increase more than the rent control allows. A mortgage would cost 3 times as much.

So you’d be better off renting and investing the deposit, the stamp duty, notary costs and the 2000€ you save each month in government bonds.

[lossolo]

Are you sure about these numbers? As ROI doesn't make any sense to me in context of the new investments built solely for rent. How does it work?

[cko]

Yes, check Numbeo for Berlin, Frankfurt, etc. Then look at the tier 1 and 2 cities in China.

https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings.jsp

The ROI absolutely does not make sense but it's real. A large portion of the world believe that the only two investment classes are real estate and government bonds.

[ameister14]

average cost for an apartment in Berlin is apparently around 5.100/m2 and rent is around 11/m2, so back of the napkin math pretty much checks out

[mmarq]

If landlords are forced to follow all regulations, the ROI on renting doesn’t work anywhere. In the UK it may still be profitable because you can evict tenants for the lulz, so they have to accept that properties are not maintained and that children may die of mould.

We would be all better off if people invested in the stock market instead of “investing” in properties (including landlords)

[lossolo]

> If landlords are forced to follow all regulations, the ROI on renting doesn’t work anywhere.

Then, who builds the new apartments that people rent? If 50% of people in Germany rent and there is no ROI from building for rent, then who finances the new buildings??

[cko]

If I owned a flat free and clear with a low rental yield as in many German cities (like 2-3%), I would sell the place to someone and then rent it from that person, then invest the proceeds into stocks.

People are overly obsessed with home ownership and being free and clear as soon as possible so they blindly repeat adages like "paying the landlord's rent" and "flushing your money away" without running the numbers.

Would you buy an apartment in Taipei, where a $1M apartment rents for $1k a month? I'd gladly pay my landlord's mortgage in that case.

It all depends on interest rates, rent to price ratio, and opportunity cost.

[mmarq]

Anglo-Saxons are not obsessed with home ownership, they have to own their homes because renting in English speaking countries is hell. My neighbours change every other year, sometimes every 6 months, because the landlord increases their rent every year, evicts them when they ask for repairs (while expecting them to cook with a 10-15 year old oven that blows the power every time they set it to more than 180 degrees) and treats them like shit. I’m talking of people that pay in excess of 3K per month, normal people with normal salaries live like animals if they are renting.

[MaKey]

Living in a flat while also owning it might have been a viable option in the past but that ship has sailed quite a while ago. In major cities - which is where the good joobs are - you're looking at down-payments of 200-300k to arrive at your current rent and even then you'd pay the mortgage for 30 years.

[mmarq]

You can make 8-9K a year investing 200K in diversified basket of government bonds. It would pay almost the entirety of my brother’s rent.

[allarm]

It's super difficult to rent a flat in Western Germany. There are literally long queues for viewing a single flat in Berlin. It's slightly better in the rest of Germany, but still difficult.

[mmarq]

It is extremely hard also in London, I know people that have been searching for months. Here tenants practically have no protections, it’s like renting on Airbnb, rents increase at random every year.

The rest of the country is a suburban wasteland

[puszczyk]

> Most people in Germany can't afford to buy an apartment let alone build a new house and you're taking as if your situation si representative for the average German.

- 2.84 million people in Germany were able to afford a new car in 2023 [0] - 1.25 million dwellings were constructed in 10y 2011-2021 [1] - The homeownership rate in Germany is very low compared to other countries but still around 50% [2]

While parent's situation is likely above the median, it doesn't mean it is not representative.

> Just because you're wealthy enough to afford a new EV and to build a new modern house, doesn't eman Germany has no problems.

Parent commented on their energy usage change over the years, not on wealth or problems. Where does you comment come from?

Also, what's your point?

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/587730/new-car-registrat... [1]: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Housin... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/246355/home-ownership-ra...

[Rinzler89]

>Parent commented on their energy usage change over the years, not on wealth or problems. Where does you comment come from?

Because policies on being eco-friendly is a matter of wealth. Wealthy countries and wealthy people are less effective by switching off fossil fuel dependency and can afford to be green without major sacrifices to their finances or their lifestyle. Poorer countries and people are hit the hardest.

[orwin]

One of my friend who work at a call center (clearly not wealthy) changed her main transportation vehicle to an electric bike ~6 month ago (just before winter, she's crazy), andshe told me last weekend that this was a net positive in every aspect, on her mood, on her routine (she has to be mindful of the weather), on her money, and on her fitness. She also go out more, since she go through the city center/harbor when biking to her job, and it's easier to stop at our bar (weirdly the bike parking infrastructure is way behind the bike lane infrastructure in our city, which makes parking with bike almost as bad as parking with a car nowadays).

[audunw]

But a car is one area where “trickle down” actually works. If you want to get affordable second hand energy efficient EVs into the market.. someone has to buy new EVs. Now. Preferably as many as possible.

We’re also rapidly heading towards the possibility of EVs with the same purchase price as an ICE. As long as you don’t need long range.

LFP batteries, motors with little or no neodymium magnets, power electronics are getting fairly cheap, 48V is enabling less use of copper, … we probably have all the tech we need, but since car companies can sell all the EVs they can make anyway, they’re still focusing on the higher end higher margin models.

Similar thing goes for heat pumps. They were pretty expensive 10-15 years ago. Now half my neighbours have gotten one, and many of them have very average jobs.

[pastage]

80% of new cars are bought by companies or in leasing agreements in Sweden, most people buy used cars. Doesn't matter that much for you point, but it does affect what people can buy.