leases it to international airport for joins. the government it's after high export revenues for corporations high profit margins. but not everyone benefits from the booming business. the selling out of a country did don't tease. us. start september 18th on d w. to mention a country that takes its climate protection goals seriously that became rich on oil yet still aims to ban cars that run on fossil fuels in just 6 years time. that country exists. norwegians aren't crazy they have a plan. germans have been building cars for over 100 years do we have

a plan to the demise of the combustion engine is near the world is shifting to an electrified future if it's not an option anymore to say it won't happen we've crossed the line it's happening that's called the question isn't what type of engine is better or more environmentally friendly the car industry is in the throes of unprecedented change and germany risks being left behind the world's biggest car market china is powering an electric vehicle revolution and building the cars it needs itself. over the course of trying to preserve jobs come hell or high water and sectors where i can see that world markets have already moved those sectors in a new direction that's the worst mistake you can make. the world has made up its mind as germany the birthplace of the automobile a proud car culture. the good news the world that we know how to build a diesel engine ours are probably the best in the world. we can also build

combustion engines the question is does the world still need them. is germany prepared for the future. we're in berrigan this was once norway's most polluted intersection don marks plus the junction of 2 major transport routes now the city's biggest electric vehicle charging station is located here. do you feel like a pioneer do you feel quite normal quite normal as it's more preferred that i don't have to pay the full grown up to go through a gas station and it's only if that's what it was as well it doesn't work because

it's so complicated although if it's not. will you have a go back to compass an engine car definite then. no other country in the world has more electric cars per capita than norway 65 percent of all new cars sold here are electric or hybrid models the figures just 7 percent in germany it's not a coincidence it's political will norway wants to be a pioneer it sees climate protection as an opportunity for its economy not a threat it's already world leader in a mission free technology for ships. drivers of electric cars enjoy tax exemptions for free or cheap or public parking and the use of bus lanes charging stations and parking garages are standard. i meet up with christina who her association represents the interests of norwegian electric car owners her voice counts not just in norway german politicians and industry. executives have also sought her advice.

this clear direction is for the consumers also a clear sign that this is this is where we're going and this is this is the future i'm really sick of hearing car manufacturer is blaming consumers saying consumers are not ready if someone asked me if i wanted a smart phone before it was launched i would have understood even. if someone up now want to take my the smart phone to wait for me i would have you know it's the same with electric mobility the norwegian case show that if prices level consumers are more than ready to go electric so don't blame us don't blame the consumers do do the job. in oslo 77 percent of all new cars sold are electric within a year carbon dioxide emissions have dipped by 9 percent. norway didn't invent the battery powered car in fact alternatives to can bust in engines have been around for a long time in 1975 mercedes rolled out its 1st emission for event. in

1976 mark the birth of books wagons electric gold. b.m.w. launched its one in the early 1990 s. . yes we showcased our 1st electric cars of the 1972 olympic games and are going to be a company like a marathon run we now have 20 years of experience under our belt and i think we've mastered the technology. yet give us 5 maybe 10 years then we'll be ready like. a bunch of those robots and. 27 years later and we're still not ready germany is nowhere near to reaching its 2020 climate goals which foresee a 1000000 electric vehicles on its roads next year instead we're still debating.

our threshold set in stone. is the diesel engine better than its tattered reputation. art electric cars polluters and other ways. the geneva motor show stomping ground of the tradition conscious car industry here nothing seems out of order. after all. is unveiling a ban on its electric. unfortunately it's not for sale yet. and then it presents that $53435.00 horsepower 212 grams of c o 2 per kilometer this around makes me feel like back into anything anywhere at any time thank you very much thank. you thank you that. they do that.

today most german electric vehicles have been hybrids big heavy and above all the expensive prices start at $70000.00 euros the premium segment has a quote higher price elasticity which is another way of saying it reaps bigger profits for managers and shareholders. small affordable mass market ready german manufacturers have been slow on the uptake. carnation germany is evidently in no hurry to join the revolution. it's counting on tried and tested technology on slow change. as a seasoned expert on the auto industry he's growing increasingly concerned. with us so if i think german car makers have a 5050 chance of surviving this world the world it could be that germany is simply a victim of its own success. but on the whole with its. auto manufacturers

industry and political backing it was too comfortable to recognize the changes and draw the correct conclusions. to see in. germany has yet to produce a master plan for coping with the changing automobile industry maybe because change is the opposite of what the government and carmakers have bonded over. some 800000 jobs are directly dependent on the auto industry and many more are indirectly dependent. annual turnover. over 400000000000 euro is. one reason why german politicians have long worked to avert any threat to the car industry protecting the sector from such a disruptive change. such as you put. in 2018 the german chancellor addressed an annual gathering of german industry deep . kima the lady that we cannot alter the climate goals that we've set for ourselves

and to an extent adopted as part of european climate targets as a whole particularly for 21st. the. i list but anything beyond those efforts threatens to drive the auto industry out of europe com makers would produce the cars they sell here somewhere else i stress that i do not want that to happen. is change necessarily a threat when it comes to the auto industry the german government seems to think so give me the imaging will use all means to fight restrictions as in driving bans our goal is to avoid driving bans and shape the future of mobility in a way that includes clean combustion engines. clean combustion engines a flexible concept in germany driving bans a red flag threatening to curtail open roads for free citizens. the

diesel emissions scandal so to anger in germany the auto industry stalled then cheated then covered it up. and then cities imposed driving restrictions. waiting for compensation germany's yellow vests feel betrayed by corporations and punished by politicians. automotive freedom subsidized diesel fuel commuter allowances incentives to sweeten life in the suburbs. but now they say they're footing the bill for mistakes made by industry and government. no it's not like that it's not true of course they cheated and v.w. has to answer for that but we can't all be punished as a result often. this will have a huge impact on germany for years to come affecting the oto industry and its supply

all the way down to the last mechanic. germany failed to get in the driver's seat and forge a path for others to follow. it may prove an existential mistake because while we germans are still arguing about past emissions the rest of the world is already on the road to a new era. china the world's biggest and most important market. it's still growing. german carmakers helped our mass motor is ation here and made a lot of money to command a market share of 23.2 percent in the combustion engine sector but just 0.4 percent in the electric car sector and that's a problem. no one can beat germany when it comes to technology for diesel and gasoline engines it has 130 years of experience. but when it comes to electric vehicles everyone has to. from the same starting line and china is racing ahead by

2025. about 25 percent of cars sold annually to be plug in hybrids or battery powered not least because the country is suffocating in small. but 25 percent in china equals the combined total of new cars sold in germany france and britain it's a giant piece of the pie. a pod that if germany isn't careful will be divided up among others. china aims to stop selling combustion engine cars in 11 years. i've arranged to meet a german top manager who spent years at b.m.w. he helped develop the i ate a small electric revolution at the time. but then he turned his back on germany and came to china. he took kept his development team with him.

what opportunities did cost and brightfield identify here that he didn't see and germany. would be existing things happen in china at lightning speed it's a gigantic market with $30000000.00 new cars sold each year and there's a ton of capital and investors in china and the issue has strong government backing in china if the government says more electric cars are the goal then the decision is made to install $50000.00 charging stations and by the next month they're in place one of them so normally the follow up question in any interview is does that mean i'm against democracy and naturally i say no i'm not but if i look at the european democratic structures then i see how we spend about a decade discussing new ideas and after a decade all that's left is 10 percent of the original idea so we need to realize that if we maintain that pace of decision making and realization that we just won't

be able to keep abreast of global developments going on. and frequent in the. las vegas the annual c.s. trade shows hot lights high tech innovations from around the world. before his current venture cost and buy failed help to build this car for chinese startup by. german manufacturing expertise lots of cash and unlimited government backing the ingredients china is using to power ahead on the market the mbai is a $40000.00 euro electric s.u.v. with a one meter 20 screen a tablet on wheels for video conferences or online shopping past the time and traffic jams that set for production play 2019. mercedes is here too with a glass proto time. the mid-range combustion engine cars on the other hand can be

purchased. b.m.w. also has a vision the i next electric driving with a shag carpet it's not for sale. i mean it another high profile german who jumped ship called thomas noirmont was on the box wagon board. c.e.o. of continental and then opel. now he lives in the u.s. where he's launched a startup. is this really the dawn of a new era the dawn of a new era and down here we have the biggest s.u.v. that b.m.w. has ever built is not emblematic of the current situation in the german car industry. but sure you could say that it's kind of symbolic of what's going on. so i mean it certainly looks more like a dinosaur than futuristic. but the dinosaurs are nearing extinction they're

still successful money makers in the twilight of the combustion engine. can success hinder progress. just because the german auto industry being held back by its own success i do think that's a big part of it yes it's hard to give up. success and say to some extent i have to destroy that success to create a new one gets ones now you weren't exactly in a bad position at opel to make a start why didn't you. if otoh you did try and there i would have liked to fully electrify opel because when the emissions scandal hit i realized it's not enough to just adhere to the laws you need to develop a new mindset that the time for god and the mindset i would have liked for opel would have been able to full switch to electric car production by 2030. then we could have gone to lawmakers and said hey we need a framework so that this can work we both need to make sure this happens jobs will

be lost but new ones will be created and electric vehicles will give rise to new business opportunities but where is this being discussed in germany or even in europe. maybe we germans simply can't part with their gas guzzlers yet because they're our invention and so slick. perfect machines with high precision parts that just keep getting better and stronger heavier. 2.5 tons german engineering genius the most complex driving machine in history. an electric car doesn't need all that instead of an estimated 2000 moving parts it has just 200 simply beneath our dignity. carnation germany appears comatose it's as if all the changes have nothing to do with us alternative engines driverless cars new visions of transport. why can't we catch up.

we're a country of engineers perfection took us to the top. and continuity kept us there . abrupt change is exactly the opposite. i have an appointment with hoover can't now he chairs a government advisory panel want to research. innovation. and he has an explanation for what's gone wrong in germany. you have to work hard to attain the status of innovation leader the danger is that once you've made it to the top and there's a reversal then you get the so-called block in effect the lock in effect means i'm trapped inside and can barely see a way out apart from extremely high expenditure so in the case of the auto industry we are now at the top of our game in fossil fuel powered cars no one comes close. but stepping out of that comfort zone towards other types of engines is associated

with very high costs conversion costs transaction costs and that's called luck and that's what we have here in the german auto industry and that's the challenge. is to. how should policymakers be steering development. in processes of deep structural change the government has a responsibility to secure people's incomes but not their jobs and no one should get left behind amid such structural change there needs to be a safety net somewhere. else. trying to preserve jobs and sectors where i can see that world markets have already moved those sectors in a new direction is the worst mistake you can make. it can't have escaped anyone's notice that things are moving in a new direction in the sector. gate the emissions crisis theoretically a good time to be mapping out a transformation plan for policymakers to more of the same can't be the answer in

a world undergoing radical change others call the shots why is germany like a rudderless ship the german transport minister didn't have time to answer our questions instead we speak to junior minister stephan been. our country is closely connected to the automotive industry so we need to consider the impact that major transformations will have on john. for us this transformation is a process of evolution not revolution and were managing quite well. but isn't it precisely because of that responsibility that we should be driving innovation. we've always pursued ambitious goals at the european level which our automotive industry has to implement. but there have been times when it seemed there was little political support for the most ambitious climate.

proposals within the europe wide debate that we don't consider productive. in my view should not be that we decide today in 2019 what transport will look like in germany in the years 20252030 or 2050 develop in the coming years. development in the wrong direction. when the car industry does well germany does well this old adage is a cornerstone of government policy. but what happens if the decades old symbiotic relationship between government and the car industry can no longer provide answers to today's challenges and the climate crisis. as one of germany's leading researchers to transport.

the german auto industry to. 670-0000 jobs that we still have because we're protecting something that has no chance of survival. of the german government to keep us as a nation of carmakers competitive. now well policy makers have had a long term plan please everybody thrive cars. cars go with the good life and even better if everyone buys german cars german technology with gasoline and diesel engines both german inventions that's what we've been pushing the view very good what's the danger. if we continue this policy then we'll be overtaken because the world around us is different people and countries and above all cities elsewhere in the world have long since made the decision to phase out combustion engines and switch to a battery operated cars if we don't play along we'll lose crucial export markets and we'll be sitting on technologies and cars that no one needs anymore. this is

kind of a. that's a problem and it's accelerating germany's slams on the brakes. to make out in the eastern state of saxony has a long tradition of building cars. you open the plant here in 1990 the gold has been rolling off its assembly line for years. but it's days are numbered change is coming probably also because a pioneer sounds better than emissions chief looks like it needs a new image. its vehicles are responsible for 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions the world's biggest carmaker wants to change that it's now taking climate goals like paris 2050 seriously and electric vehicles are the future. us helped devise the plan he's chief strategist had folks welcome a close associate of c.e.o. habit diesel. he filled a new position at b.w.

it never had a strategist before. what do you call a strategy that propagates diesel cars for decades and then suddenly says the future is electric. for starters one doesn't rule out the other we've never said diesel cars have lost their relevance. but in view of the challenges we all face to meet the paris targets and bring down c o 2 levels v.w. as a mass market producer really has no other choice. but i wasn't but are we in germany reacting fast enough given the speed of developments around the world . every technological transformation comes with teething problems whenever you rebuild something it takes 3 days before you get it to run smoothly and another 3 days before you get used to it but it all i don't get the feeling this will take 3 days it's well symbolically speaking. it can doubtlessly be sped up.

speed is what the car industry needs now it's had its foot on the brakes for too long. the w's mass market electric model the id 3 will be built and take out. the companies funneling 400000000 euros into the facilities conversion. but the switch to electric will make engine builders exhaust fitters fuel pump experts redundant. so b.w. is sending them on what it calls a learning journey to prepare for the future. long term employees will have new tasks. this is where the specialists are trained in a role play room called emotion. after

a look back at the company history trainees get a vision of the future with virtual reality. these. are. not. an experience that everyone at this plant is slated to share. misfitting it was based on what you know so far do you think you're in for a big change. that's what it will be a big change for everyone here. w. is proud. out of the 17000 orders for electric vehicles but that's just the start the company builds 44000 vehicles every day.

says. change is coming but what about the german auto industry and government policy can we afford to be complacent or worse yet without a plan. china is building its own fleet of electric cars german engineers are helping. now german car makers want change faster than the government. the transport minister calls folks faggots plan totally wrong and wants to keep an open technological mind. a look at norway shows government backed change gets results. so do clearly formulated goals of what we are telling you how false this guy if i may be showing how false that is so for the car in the street to selling cars and all that in the future they have to be serious that's where they go and as opening up for that's

just the masses we have to make it happen fast and every country will benefit from being in the forefront of they see change said the lightning behind. it's the end of an era but also the beginning of something new the sooner we accept that and sees it as an opportunity the better. is coming all of this can be done if there's a will to get it done if we just sit back and wait to see what happens then we'll face major problems and i think we're already seeing the 1st signs of those problems today. if carnation germany doesn't look to the future than others will shape its future industry and government have sat back too long. more of the same is no model for the future we need to hit the road.

on. s.o.s. europe the european idea is in crisis. if it's to have a future it will need champions young champions meet foreign journalists and for the country. they may or function for the dream others. do they stand a chance can they say still european idea just among millions on d w. literature invites us to see people in particular. i like to see myself as the kids find strength grown up. my objective is to share work and.

you know the books on you to. this is news coming to you live from berlin bangladesh is calling it paradise but rohingya refugees says it's that it's for them it means death. the government in dhaka threatens to send tens of thousands of earthing of by force to a remote island. children libby trial for them it's another trap when i lose them.