Nothing about the prediction is populistic. Claiming that one simulation was already given imperative results is populistic. Like I said, it took considerably longer than just until the 1950 until this climate scenario was scientific consensus.

Things do move slowly, not always but if we are talking about radical change of our infrastructure and also uprooting the way the economy works, those things are measured in decades, not years. We can deny that and just detach ourself from reality or work within reality.

To point out anything more detailed, I would need to know what the article actually writes about. I am not saying that there were no failings.

Railway infrastructure is commonly built for a 100 year lifespan. Even if it is updated, many norms are grandfathered in. Changing that requires enourmous effort.

That aside, your 1950 date is rather populistic. It was absolutely not scientific consensus back then that climate would change like that. It was only in the 1970s that this changed. That was 50 years ago and yes, that is not an enourmous long timespan for reworking our entire infrastructure. The Netherlands for example needed that time to undo the car centric dogma back to a multimodal one. The harmonisation process for rail control systems in Europe is easily 2-3 decades in the making and will easily need another 1-2 decades to even cover most of the primary network.

The article is behind a paywall so I can’t comment ton specifics but to think all the norms and all the infrastructure could be easily changed, is taking a few short cuts. Granted, a lot of things can be changed at much faster pace but then also at much higher cost and also much higher waste.

I am not saying one should not be serious about those changes, but nothing is gained from polemics.

Rail infrastructure is to a large extend older than Univac 1. Never mind that just because one prediction came to a result, doesn’t make it scientific concensus and standards don’t change over night.

Things are built to norms and standards. Quite some of it was built when the current trends were absolutely not foreseen, well before the 1970s. Updating everything is no small task, especially if that requires complete reconstruction of some parts.

It just needs an employee who ended his employment in a way that was not to his or her liking. This is a huge risk for the company, the fines are substantial and huge companies will have a hard time keeping everything watertight and secret. Alternatively, hackers or other informed people can get to know a lot about the functioning of systems, firmware and software. So even if there is no one ratting the company out, they could still end up with those huge fines, or worse.

That’s why in Austria we have not only Unions but a “Worker’s chamber” (and also an “Enterpreneur’s chamber”). While companies can prevent unions they can’t prevent that chamber. If you are not part of a union you can still call the chamber and it has legal specialists, it can help you and also sue on your behalf if need be, at no cost to you. If the company fires you over your legit concern’s they can also get you damages for that from that company. Of course, unions can offer stronger protection and the two institutions also work together but it is good to have a second layer that companies can’t get rid off.

These things are quite different between different countries in Europe as well though.

Selling that data is illegal in the EU, isn’t it? It probably isn’t elsewhere though.

It is probably a waste to ask you, how it is that the US is driving the same anti-EU propaganda that Russia is and supporting even the identical parties for that. It makes zero sense if the EU is “the biggest bootlicker to DC”.

Member states have shifted substantial arms procurement away from the US, contrary to your claim too.

Given the delusional stuff you are saying about gas and your opposition to the sanctions against the Russian regime, at least it gets clear where you are coming from. If you prefer being ruled by DC or Moscow, after destroying Brussels.

No. France vs Germany, Romania vs Bulgaria, Crotia vs Austria …

Funny how nationalists, can’t possibly imagine that there could be something other than national entities and communities, as if the Westphalian paradigm would be really so total as it pretends to be.

There is no “Euronation”, there doesn’t need to be to have a common European Union, with a common civil society, legal and judicial institutions and common law, to do the things the member states can’t do on their own. Of course Russia and the US hate that because they’d rather prefer those things being decided in DC or Moscow instead, without the influence from anyone from all these European countries.

He doesn’t even come close. Camacho was a great president, he was dumb like bread but he figured out that things went catastrophically wrong and he not only found the best qualified person to address that problem but also promoted him to a position of power and enabled him to resolve the issue, saving the country from famine.

That is more than a number of presidents of the US of A have done and certainly more than Trump would be ever capable of.

True, that’s why I did not even bother to mention it ;)

You are using a derogatory term for cars that are great choices for many. Even if those cars are not suitable for your requirements it just puts you in a certain light.

There are indeed not a lot of MPV EVs on offer, I guess, car producers really want to push people into more profitable, less useful SUVs instead. But then VW has been killing the Sharan also among ICE vehicles. So this isn’t even an EV problem.

The best best for your requirement is maybe still the Toyota Proace City Verso L2 50 kWh. AT 40000 EUR it is also somewhat reasonably priced for a van with 5-7 seats. It has a central screen but it is rather conservative as far as modern cars go. Yes, it is a full Van rather than a compact Van but like I said, producers really don’t want to produce those anymore.

Ah, someone who makes fun of practicable cars that are suitable in reality for the majority of urban and suburban users. Let me guess you are looking for one of those child-crushers?

Sadly, the privacy won’t come back in general with new cars but if I look at the coming ID.Polo, VW is throwing out most of the Tesla trash, the previous CEO has brought in (terrible and extremely cheap interior, no real buttons, no reall door handles etc). It is a really good VW again.

It is even more extreme if you view the entire index history. The Covid peak looks almost benign in comparison and that was quite substantial but with a rather slow in rise and fall. Now, since the LLM bubble has been started, NASDAQ has almost doubled and in recent months almost feverishly. Nah, no bubble, nothing to see here, all based on reality. Please invest, we need to unload the bad money onto someone else.

Again, this has nothing to do specifically with EVs it is a general new car thing. There are still options out there though, if you want minimal digital interfaces. The Fiat 500e for example comes in its basic configuration without a central display (you can still get the bigger battery with that setup). You can optionally use your phone as replacement, for example for navigation, or not. No weather, no social media, no music playlist. Oh, and the the car has real buttons as well.

So you don’t like the ID Buzz offer, fair. It doesn’t make the position that VW has nothing on offer as largest seller of EVs in Europe any less absurd.

Combustion engine efficiency is limited by hard physics and modern day combustion engines have gotten impressively close to that theoretical limit. So no, the remaining potential of ICE is not that great anymore.

Actual efficiency of BEVs is way better than even the theoretical limit of ICE.

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