E-cars are damaged
Time and again in recent years, people who have a rather negative attitude towards electric cars have damaged them. “InsideEVs” only reported in April about an incident in which a motorcyclist from the USA stopped on the street next to a Tesla Model Y and threw a stone at it. Tesla driver Mitch Zink posted a video of the TeslaCam (Teslas Dashcam) documenting the incident to Facebook. However, what happened before or after the stone was thrown can no longer be seen on the video.
And the Mnchner Abendzeitung also reports on an incident in which a dislike of Stromer could be suspected. According to this, unknown persons are said to have contaminated a charging station of the Munich municipal works with minced meat. The perpetrators are said to have smeared the flesh into the socket of the electric pump. The flesh got as far as the contacts of the plugs, which temporarily disabled the charging station. According to the Abendzeitung, the municipal utilities have noticed an increase in the number of willful damage or even destruction of charging stations. In 15 percent of cases, faults in charging stations can be traced back to vandalism or other external influences.
Where does the aversion to electric cars come from?
“EFahrer” interviewed the psychologist Prof. Dr. Claus Christian. He already conducted an experiment in 2016 in which he examined the prejudices against electric car technology. It was found that people mostly feel aversion because of prejudices and electromobility is no exception. He sees another reason for the dislike in saying goodbye to combustion engines: “There are both: displeasure about electromobility and fascination with a new technology. Displeasure about this topic arises from two different things: On the one hand, there is real melancholy at the farewell to combustion engines – we mustn’t forget: significant inventions in the field of combustion technology were made in Germany: from the diesel to the Otto engine to the Wankel engine. If all of that is to be gone now, that’s a real farewell.”
Nonetheless, Claus-Christian explains that, in addition to aversion, there is also positive emotionalisation and fascination with the new technologies. In his opinion, dissatisfaction with electric vehicles will continue to decrease over the next few years and more reservations about combustion engines will arise. Hate is never productive, which is why the debate is already of great importance. “Hate, but as much as it is now, it’s never something that’s productive. A healthy argument is different. [] Debates, on the other hand, are good because they exchange different points of view. Mobility is an important and emotional topic, it stimulates to talk about it”, he explained.
How should the debates be properly conducted?
The psychologist criticizes that in Germany it was communicated too late that the Federal Republic, as one of the innovation leaders, can take no other path than to work consistently on new innovations. “A lot depends on mobility: On the one hand, personal happiness in deciding where and when to go, on the other hand, jobs, economic strength, prosperity and future viability depend on mobility,” says Claus-Christian. If the market for internal combustion engines collapses, new and modern concepts must be developed that can open up a large new market. It must be made clear to people that electric mobility can be a great opportunity and an investment market. In the past, the combustion engine also had to assert itself against the horse-drawn carriage. Electromobility can, under certain circumstances, record a similar success story here.
“We have to be honest about the ups and downs. We have to prefer long-term calculations to short-term calculations because this is a very long-term project. And it must be clear that we are actively tackling the hurdles that still exist today in the production of such vehicles in order to to solve associated problems in the long term, e.g. ethical aspects of mining rare earths, supply bottlenecks for lithium, monopolies for palladium and the like. We have to inspire people and not teach them. The future belongs to those who understand that,” Claus-Christian concludes .
E. Schmal / Editor finanzen.net
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