The automotive industry is the most important economic sector in countries such as Germany and Austria. These countries became prosperous thanks to the internal combustion engine, which was mounted on a carriage and developed to perfection as an automobile.

However, the switch from combustion engines to electric motors has been a sword of Damocles hanging over the traditional automotive industry for years. A third of all employees are involved in the design, production, assembly or maintenance of components for the combustion engine. An electric drive with a tenth of the components requires correspondingly fewer employees. A horror scenario for many companies and the regions in which they operate, which fear significant job losses.

It is therefore not surprising that politicians – and especially the conservatives – in Germany and Austria are discovering this topic for themselves. Not by working to facilitate the inevitable transition to the new, more climate-friendly form of propulsion with retraining programs and investments in new production facilities, but by holding on to the old technology for as long as possible. The whole thing is wrapped in the cloak of “technological openness”, misleadingly suggesting that more forms of propulsion are better for the economy and consumers.

In Germany, the CDU/CSU or the AfD are strongly in favor of combustion engines and against a – non-existent – ban on combustion engines, in Austria it is the ÖVP and FPÖ. This leads to unmasking moments. For example, a CDU survey on the ban on combustion engines, which the party advertised to its voters by e-mail, was shipwrecked. In response to the question “Do you support the call to revoke the ban on combustion engines?“, 86% of participants voted no. The CDU then accused massive manipulation and ended the survey after less than 24 hours.

In Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) hosted a “car summit“. Here too, “technological openness” is to be “protected” and an EU ban on combustion engines prevented. The latter does not exist, as cars with combustion engines may still be sold from 2035, provided that they are powered by sustainably produced liquid fuels – such as e-fuels.

Austrian Economics Minister Martin Kocher (ÖVP) used fax machines and telephone booths, which had not been banned, as a comparison. That is correct, and as already mentioned, this also applies to combustion engines.

But we already know how it turned out with the fax machines and phone booths. In 2022, Deutsche Telekom announced that of the original 160,000 telephone boxes, of which more than 90% had already disappeared from the streetscape by the end of 2022, the remaining 12,000 telephone boxes would also be completely dismantled by 2023. Phone booths had been replaced by smartphones that everyone carries around with them.

And fax machines? They were not banned either and they still exist, but how big is their turnover? Market studies provide information on this. In 2023, global sales of fax machines amounted to EUR 825.7 million (USD 898.3 million), of which 33% was generated in the US and 26% in the EU. Of the 214.7 million euro turnover for Europe, sales of fax machines amounted to 40 million euro in Germany and 4 million euro in Austria.

Twenty years ago, would such projected sales for the year 2024, when the Internet had emerged, have justified a telephone booth or fax summit by the German government to prevent the looming replacement of the old technology?

Hardly. The car summit is little more than a political show in which the existing situation is to be maintained instead of forward-looking alternatives and measures. And this has never saved an industry or saved those affected from losing their jobs. It only ever led to a waste of taxpayers’ money and the disappearance of industry in the country before new industries could gain a foothold in this country. These were then primarily created elsewhere.