economics magazine 3 names in germany. next on. these places in europe are smashing records. stepping into a trench or it's a treasure map for modern globe trotters to discover some of the record breaking sites. and also in book form. the fact that. our world such a beautiful place and yet this is what we're faced with on a daily basis not during the pandemic but maybe that's what it takes a pandemic to make us rethink about how we get about our city could soon mean

taking off to work or literally zipping down the road to grab a bite or without food make its way to us in a completely new beneficial way. what about really thinking green well more of us switch to bicycles i did a long time ago it saves me time money a lot of stress and keeps me fit rethinking mobility pedal power gives you a sense of freedom and independence and in times like these it allows you to stay out in the fresh air rather than cramming on to public transport and to keep your distance from everyone else where the cars give cyclists the distance they need is another story some are so overly polite that they drive all the way around you keeping up to 3 meters distance others zip by leaving just a whisker between you and death's door the rule in germany is at least one and a half meters but what would our cities look like if we got rid of the costs.

demonstrations in berlin take to their bikes they want more car free cycling rates in the city center more pedestrian zones and generally fewer cars in the capital a friend put it out of work i think there's enough infrastructure for motorised transport so. what we need is to make more provision for cyclists and we need to fight for a greener berlin why not just that i'm. meanwhile cars can't get through forced to make way for the cyclists. what do these motorists think about cyclists as it needs to be space for both not just the cyclists all the cars everyone's important and i lose no sleep on. how about a quadricycle all velo made bail for cycling in all its forms has become his image i mean capital. for 3 percent is right average speed in the city is 25 kilometers

an hour otherwise 30. today the protesters are being allowed on to the city freeway the police once again holding back the cars but state government has adopted new transport policies in recent years adding cycle lanes and converting some streets into cycling and pedestrians opens but some want to more radical approach as a working obvious and from fox we want a referendum on drastically reducing traffic in berlin normally the streets are stuffed full of cars and we think that's unfair especially in inner cities where so many people no longer use a car yet have to sacrifice so much space to them cars just aren't in keeping with the times anymore and. in many parts of the world in the cities are being rapidly transformed we spoke to one architect who is well aware of the challenges. a pandemic is serving to speed up

a process that has long been under way. just take a walk through our protest rooms. and you'll see the problems. people are doing more shopping online department stores especially have suffered in recent years and the pandemic has made things worse. a lot of shop space and car parks now stand empty. this is former department store in the center of a west german city was converted into an apartment building with shops. no one here needs a car now. guys inside took the puzzles line it's important to cater to both living and working in the city. that's the only way to reduce the amount of commuter traffic. here. this building in berlin central mitta district was

also designed for people without a car there are shops artist studios apartments and offices to all designed for a living and working under one roof passers by can look inside this like the flower beds is an intentional feature they are it lets you know what's going on out there who's passing by and i get to enjoy the plants that are growing here too. there's no doubt that in the cities with fewer vehicles a more pleasant denmark's capital copenhagen has banned all cars from the city center. paris is planning to plant more trees on the shelves eliseo and around the arc de triomphe in an effort to cut traffic significantly. in new york parts of broadway near times square already caffrey dotted with street cafes designed by danish urban planners.

car makers have also understood that times are changing v.w. has developed. driving shuttles that it hopes will become the taxis of the future and help to come in a city traffic. branches moving from being a pure auto maker to becoming a mobility provider so whether you buy a car from us lease or rented or just use it and whether you drive yourself or not our business model works either way. back to the bike rally in berlin or the demonstrators are making a bigger line for the city's been freeway. if they get that way the german capital will one day no longer need a freeway to calm least. i often cycle through berlin thinking how different the city of look if there weren't any cars all streets. landscapes

are totally governed by cars so much so that you take it for granted but imagine if we just had parkland gardens and trees it'd be pretty amazing and instead we've got endless kilometers of asphalt this sort of thing as well from time to time morial for a cyclist hit by a car or truck they've already been to such incidents this year in the german capital because a driver turned without looking over their shoulder. marcel schmidt has been driving a truck for 30 years the fun of hitting a cyclist while turning a corner has always been his worst nightmare and he knows it could happen any time . but what it said even if it wasn't my fault and the cyclist had gone through a red light and didn't die but was seriously injured. i don't know how i deal with it. or if i ever get in a truck again. unfortunately it's never happened to him and in the past it was an

even bigger problem the noun. the modest of normal mirrors on each side and between mrs going all the more mira you had such a big blind spot if you wanted a roundabout i suspect you want to go like this and want this so you could see. and then you get a situation where you think there's no one coming and then looks in a month you know. statistics show that around $28.00 cyclists die every year in germany because they're overlooked by truck drivers turning but how can it still be happening so often trucks do have their mirrors after all. the problem is they're not enough. let's take a look at what drivers can actually see. with

a side view mirror the driver can see this area and this area. but not this one any cyclist in this blind spot won't be seen. and that's why a blind spot assist mechanism was developed to help at junctions. sensors scan the area that the driver can see if there's something there it sounds and a lot. of the. the job you just did is blind spot assist is great sometimes it repeats a lot even when there's no one there because it senses some kind of object and thinks it's a cyclist but that's ok. whenever it peeps you lean over and look and if there's really a danger you do an emergency stop among them if you're going to put the. muscle schmidt works for a transport and logistics company called eminence. it's been using blindspot assistance technology for many years and. so far 85 percent of its fleet has been

equipped with the sensors the company believes safety systems like this are important because every accident can have dramatic consequences. we didn't introduce it because it's compulsory otherwise we would have waited for the law to change your mind we acted in our own interest on behalf of our employees for their safety safety of our vehicles and other road users. from july next year only trucks in the european union will have to be equipped with blind spot assistance systems. trucks that regularly supply goods to europe must also be fitted with the latest safety systems. a few years ago this all the company in ukraine bought 10 trucks

with modern driver system systems not an easy decision as the costs involved are considerable. too for the store get the blindspot assist costs around 1500 euros but trucks but it all adds up to more than the starting price for a truck is 100000 euros. or don't you have to add enough to force. 1000 euros more for all the optional extras so everyone has to calculate whether they can really afford it. was more. here in ukraine the drivers are also very much in favor of the safety systems. in order that every truck should have a blindspot sensor system installed and even cars need to have a lane departure warning and emergency braking systems the rigors of least things had been made to stand there long ago it would have saved many lives more moved most of us to be used.

just kidding that's going to publish a warning. marcel schmidt is grateful for every safety feature on the copra provides but at the same time he knows in the end it's the driver who's responsible. gun can't rely on the technology completely it's great and definitely a help but you shouldn't rely on it. and what happens when you take the driver out of the equation when it's up to algorithms to decide on watch or who's worth slamming on the brakes full or if it comes down to swerving to miss a child but taking someone else's life instead. out official intelligence and self driving cars a still in development with lots of an answer questions and it's going to take

a lot longer than the auto experts originally expected electric cars made while it finally started to catch on they're a big subsidies for german motorists and a heap more choice the race between v.w. and tesla for example is heating up it wasn't that long ago that declared it was going green and the last quarter of last year it overtook tesla in a vehicle sales this was once modern and this will soon be old innovation drives the auto industry has to sales figures and market power pioneers are challenging the big names but who's in the driver's seat. he was long dismissed as crazy iran must began making electric cars in the early 2000 it's his chest the brand is now a major player selling 500000 vehicles a year its market value higher than all the german carmakers put together but the winds of change are coming the german automaker is switching to all electric. bill

. through early early late fast slow when it comes to technical innovation that's always an impossible question i'd say folks wagon was right on time. electric cars are growing in popularity many governments now offer buyers financial incentives bokes wagon is converting plants at a cost of 35000000000 euros over the next 3 years. it's the what else it does for you w. has many more models than tesla if they all can the 2 electric eye for the next few years but he will soon overtake tesla. battery production is another focus the german car maker eventually once batteries made in europe using green electricity. we want to ensure that we're well supplied with high quality battery cells and ultimately bring our costs into line through economies of scale. so the

car of the future will be electric and what else the trend is towards driving cars that need the driver frame to focus on more important things a living room or office on wheels. so the car becomes not just a mode of transport but an extension of the home. and it's up to us to design the vehicle accordingly cars need to be ready so the customer can work play all read at leisure all. connectivity is clearly going to be key but perhaps not just inside the car elon and auto makers need to see the bigger picture. here to manage to yet or not specially now in the pandemic i would like to have seen or to make is investing in the development of new mobility concepts concepts. this could be apps that allow customers to decide how to get from a to b.

perhaps a single platform that offers various for. transport here to automakers risk falling behind. us could. stop where companies like amazon alibaba and others are already very strong in this area it would certainly not be sensible to wait until they have the perfect solution on the market but to take the initiative now. we've designed a digital customer interface using our we connect services and will continue to expand and develop that. the carmakers are working on their digital strategy individually as rivals the prospect of one big mobility platform for all isn't on the cards. there have been ideas and discussions on not but no decisions yet. so there's plenty of room for innovators from other industries to pull ahead google and apple are already on the job. even care craft maker sense an opportunity.

if there's any big breakthrough the german part of maker could once again find the c.e.o. playing catch up. and from 4 wheels to 2 you think it'll be a little harder to win over real redhead's when it comes to going electric and there are a lot of hurdles when it comes to the technology but motorbikes a racing up the popularity ladder we put 2 of them to the test drivers dhoni and kai static. we're going to find out who is queen or king or even at the cycles. i don't have the feeling. i gave the 3rd. and therefore we prepared some seriously gruesome challenges for these 2 beauties.

the electric powered by eggs have similar steps so it promises to be a fide 0 as far as it has 110 horsepower and the premium model will set you back about 26000 euros in germany. is heavier and packs slightly less horse power at a $105.00 it costs around $33000.00 the manufacturers want to show their modern side 0 motorcycles is a start up from the u.s. and it's often called the test wales. harley davidson has long stood for loud mentors and the smell of gas but even it launched its 1st electric model in 2019 its clients are becoming more environmentally conscious and electric motor cycles are becoming more popular in 2020 in the sales grew by 50 percent to almost 19000 units. so is taking which bike i would say there's 2 options we can either

fight it out or do rock paper scissors what do you prefer i would say we do rock paper scissors but the winner takes the harley. want to prove. so we hit the road very quietly the loudest thing is the sound of the other vehicles around us and the ride feels pretty solid in city traffic it's actually easier because you don't have to shift gears all the time. because it's our 1st time on the motorbike. and we have a long day ahead of us we're worried about the range so we've both opted for the eco mode whenever we break or take our hand off the accelerator it generates power for the better. we start our competition with a drag race on a go cart test track outside berlin. drag race means who's fastest off the mark.

on your mark get set. go. victoria for the. but biking is more than just going fast the real test of a bike can be at slow speeds and you can easily lose balance so it's time for a challenge number 2 getting snow without touching the ground. are come our callers there's. look. 2

i'm sure i can win the next challenge to breaking. wheel speed up to 60 kilometers an hour and brake as hard as we can. and. frank is not really convinced by the accuracy of this test. we have you can't really comment because it depends how fast you're moving one or 2 kilometers an hour would make a difference when did you start to break it's time for you both to do it at the same time you know that's why it's hard to use that to compare which bike has the better brakes. is not. the next test it's probably more interesting for every day riders 1st we take the bikes through some lovely brand book countryside

to run the batteries down. time for the charge challenge. the harley says it's capable of super charging which could be a reason to buy it but apparently not at this station and says oh my god if this really takes 8 hours which i don't then we'll stay here until forever but luckily it wasn't 8 hours after an hour the harley was half charged turns out charging. those are your s.o.'s isn't any easier either. after another they were almost fully charged both bikes disappointed with the range we got which was less than promised are our final challenge because everyone has something very special and i know you will love it because because it's a race to yes if there aren't then the once you're used to. mom so far both bikes have 2 points each will win the crown our instructor frank lays down

the gauntlet on a conventional petrol bike it's not that fast. now it's julia's turn. on. to. bridge. thinking the 1st one a pretty good. i want to hit the gas. to there she goes you do. 0. 55

that's quite ok for holly right. now it's time to prove that my 0 is better. ready to go. i wonder how many times. please. please. please. look.

or how do i do if it is going to the coach. so all the crushes on the restaurant hold off a little bit but look at the food. we're back at where we started so i'm risking our queen of emotive cycles considering the challenges i want to breath raised and the go kart track and i won the slow driving and the braking. so that's technically a time but even bullets he's all about charging right well the charging with the holly life i was just insane this is definitely in a great going against a minus point this is a lovely bike but the charging was just a pain in the. so with all this in our minds who do you think should get the crown well the be perfectly honest i think there's 0 deserves to crown the charging process with a life i is just no fun so. i should do it yes i'm going to say road that you may

be a crown. welded up when i. come up if you. can see putting up much of a fight for that crowd after calling it technically a tie but he's a good sport both of them are that's it for this week thanks for watching.

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is the the view news live from berlin rallies across russia meet with a tough. 1400. people turned out in the files demanding freedom for. the jailed kremlin critics health is failing after 3 weeks on hunger strike also coming up with ukraine seeking international help against russia's

military buildup visits the ukrainian city where residents are preparing for the worst. germany's parliament power.