The price of fuel in Germany is going up. The number of traffic jams is related to that. There is a need for a sharp decrease of CO2 emissions. Germans are buying cars that are insane.
The gasoline prices increased before the war of aggression against Ukraine began. The Germans were not deterred from buying cars. The car density in Germany is increasing according to the Federal Office of Statistics. There are a lot of electric cars.
There are rural areas.
There were over 500 cars per 1,000 inhabitants in Germany. It’s a record. There are almost 50 million registered cars. In 2012 it was 42.95 million. Despite the ongoing discussion about the climate crisis and the need to get emissions down, the sky seems to be the limit here.
The public transport system in rural areas is not good and many Germans need their cars. Buses come a few times a day in some areas. A woman who needs to get to work, pick up her kids from school and take them to their karate class just before she goes to the supermarket definitely needs her vehicle, just like her husband who will take the kids home from the class when he leaves his job.
There is electric mobility.
Things are not the same in Berlin. Many people need their cars here. There is a big difference. The car density is very high in areas with few cities and a lot of rural areas. In Saarland, it’s 658, in Rhineland-Palatinate, it’s 622 and in Bavaria, it’s 622. The city state of Berlin has a large public transport network.
More than 6 percent of households in Germany have more than one car. More than 25 percent have at least one car. The number of electric cars is not what it should be, but it is rising. 1.3 percent of cars on the country’s roads and streets were electric in the first half of the 20th century. The share was less than one percent a year ago.
Europe’s neighbors.
The car density is higher in Europe. It is in Italy and Poland. South-eastern European countries have the opposite situation. In terms of car density, Hungary has the highest density of cars per capita of any country.
I am the founder of The Berlin Spectator. I was a war reporter in Yugoslavia before I came to Berlin. I was a foreign correspondent for German and Swiss radio stations in the U.S. I knew what it was like to be an expatriate when I lived in Mexico and Bulgaria. I used to live in Berlin.
Contact me here: imanuelmarcus (at) gmail.com
The next post.
Germany and the Corona Pandemic will be covered in the next chronological sequence.
The content is protected.