I sat last night and watched a 'special' with HR (the Hessen regional public network)....covering the diesel car episode. There were two interesting bit to the special.
First, they had a 2009 VW Beetle....reasonable mileage....great condition....diesel. So the normal resale value would be around 6,700 Euro (Blue Book). Then the team took the car to public resale lot and sat around for an entire afternoon. The sign on the car was set to 6,000 Euro....no interest.
Commentary by the small-time dealers? No one had interest in the VW for anywhere near the price. As one guy noted....if you dropped the price by 25-percent (4,500 Euro), then he might start talking but he probably wasn't aiming at more than 4,000 Euro.
The problem is that across Germany....virtually every single diesel owner is stuck with a under-valued car. They can't get normal value. You can sense that there is anger and frustration building. VW is partly to blame...the German federal government deserves some blame as well.
Then one of the small-time dealers comments, with a grin. He noted that you don't have this problem in Poland, Czech, France, Austria, etc.
On this....he's absolutely correct. All of this diesel crisis is German-created....to affect only Germans. No one else in Europe is on the ban-diesel trend. If you had some cash, some language ability with French or Polish...you could buy these German diesel vehicles at the 25-percent discount (maybe more), and drive a couple of hours....to resale in Poland or France....probably clearing 1,000 Euro profit off each car (my humble belief).
The second interesting bit to the HR special was a demonstration of an electrical vehicle. They had two guys....on a 700 km trip to Hamburg. On a typical day in Germany, via the autobahn and half-way decent traffic...this trip should take around 8 hours....maybe 9 hours if done on a Friday afternoon.
The guys ran at a good pace for two hours.....then needed a recharge. The first station was not a problem to find....but they needed an hour to recharge to one-hundred percent. That was fine....they sat and had lunch.
So then the guy come up at the end of five hours....needing the next charge, and there are issues (the charger machine was not easily found). They probably wasted at least 100 minutes between the charge and locating the right machine.
They came fairly close on the final leg of the trip but had to stop one more time and charge once again. The trip finished out at just over twelve hours.
As you look forward to 2030 and this national effort to dump all diesel and gas new-car sales....you just view the German usage of electrical cars on a massive limitation scale. A couple in Bavaria who might want to go and rent some Danish beach house for two weeks? This journey which might take fourteen hours in a normal car with occasional breaks and gas-refueling episodes? With a battery-car, I would take a humble guess that they'd be looking at near twenty-four hours to make the journey.
This other odd event will also occur....in that fewer gas stations will exist by 2040 (if the battery-car were to continue on).....so what happens when some Swiss folks, or Spanish folks come through Germany with regular gas cars? Maybe the autobahn gas stations will exist, but the cost on such fuel along the autobahn will be outrageous. And if the visitors left the autobahn....to say stop and spend five days in the Rhine Valley? Where would the fuel be located?
You have to feel some compassion for the diesel owners, but this effort to control things and envision some map of public transportation in thirty years will be a anxiety-filled period. Some idiot will eventually invent a new German word for people frustrated with e-cars and this act of waiting around for a re-charge....requiring mental health people to provide support.
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