I have just heard on the radio (7 a.m., Bayern2) that car sales in Germany have plummeted drastically since the environmental premium, also known as wreck premium, has been terminated.
Surprise, surprise! The last figures about car sales in the USA (which used to be the world’s biggest car market) indicate 5 million car sales last year. In China (which overtook the USA), it appears that 6.5 million cars were sold.
The 5 billion Euros paid for the environmental/wreck premium in Germany mean 2 million car sales (in less than 9 months)! Taking into account how many Americans, let alone Chinese people live on this planet, this is a huge amount of cars for a small country overflowing with cars already, like Germany.
The wreck premium was probably only extended because of the elections. The responsible parties feared that termination of the “premium” would make the stupidity of the idea really transparent.
Our politicians are not that stupid.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
The picture is a snapshot of a VW beetle with Belgrade licence plates. I took it during my bike tour earlier this year from Budapest to the Black See, 50 km from Belgrade (for details, just look up my travel journal).
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