It's not too surprising. Yes, Germany is slow to adapt to new tech, but they are a car manufacturing powerhouse and are the biggest country in Europe. The whole country is in an everlasting debate about its dependency on car manufacturing, and cars are _very_ important. It would be surprising if they weren't no 1 producer (and probably consumer) in Europe.
This is not the news that informs.<p>I can't tell from the article if they count Tesla's Berlin factory as "German assembly line".<p>If not, the article should say that.<p>If yes, to say that "Germany’s automakers manufactured" 1 million EVs is misleading given that around 25% of that was Tesla's Model Y.<p>Tesla has a factory in Germany but it's a stretch to call it a German automaker, just like Toyota has factories in Mexico but we don't call it Mexican company.<p>Either way, to namecheck Volkswagen or BMW but not Tesla is just bizarre.
Germany is weird. They talk a lot about green, but sabotage and protest against Tesla factory, because 'reasons'. While being perfectly ok with Coal strip mining.<p>The mine is on the site of the ancient Hambach Forest, which was purchased by RWE in 1978. The company then cut most of the forest down and cleared it to mine. Only 10% of the forest area remains: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine</a><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-monster-is-threatening-to-swallow-a-small-town-in-germany" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010956116/a-coal-mining-mons...</a>
I've had a couple of German cars, and a few Japanese cars. I'll never own another German car because the maintenance costs (my experience and that of a family member) are crazy compared to Japanese cars.
German EV production is too expensive, they need to cut on additional options and quality of materials. Electric BMW X3 is just a joke in China on it's price point.
In other news Volkswagen is heavily investing in energy storage from used car batteries,<p>e.g. <a href="https://www.heise.de/en/news/Volkswagen-s-first-green-energy-storage-system-in-northern-Germany-in-2025-9753238.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.heise.de/en/news/Volkswagen-s-first-green-energy...</a>