this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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How is it in any way relevant what German car makers were doing 80+ years ago? Unless you also think all modern-day Germans should be "cancelled".
Apart from that I agree, the American car lobby has been terrible for public transport development and green energy
Because they and many other modern car companies supported nazi genocide and fascism for money that I don’t think it’s a coincidence we’re seeing the same with Tesla. Time doesn’t change the past.
Unless it's the same people in charge of the company as it was in 1941 then it doesn't matter. Everyone knows that many German companies have a terrible past, but they've long since taken a clear stance against it. There is literally no correlation between these German car brands and Tesla. It matters what they do today (and possibly the recent past).
If you want to boycott things over the distant past you literally couldn't use anything.
Tesla deserves this because of Elon's current actions. If he steps or gets removed and Tesla continues to operate with a different philosophy there should be no issue with them in, say, 15 years.
I disagree on it mattering, and there are plenty of correlations including executives with histories across the auto industry. These companies aren’t as nimble or efficient as their branding suggests - they’ve operated with the same tactics for decades and the holocaust was not that long ago. Id argue the only thing that’s changed is corporate rebranding & propaganda because a new image was profitable, not because they magically became altruistic. Companies that escaped their problematic moments should not have escaped them - the fact that they did is itself problematic. ‘I’m sorry’ is not payment enough for profiteering off of genocide in my opinion. Well aware of how many companies are problematic, I just think we can do better.
Focusing on Elon for his actions right now is a great step and focus area tho!
So, if the Volkswagen Group car brands all dissolved and the people in charge created a new company that'd be just fine? Why would we boycott a company for what happened 80 years ago? We can just build a wall around Germany then.
What exactly is problematic? The past has happened and it cannot be changed; how you deal with it is the only question, and the Germans in particular have dealt with it admirably. It only matters what they do with they're given. Nothing is static, especially not a company which is just a reflection of their owners and employees.
Would it make you or anyone happier if we drove in Skodas rather than Volkswagens?
I agree that public transport could be much better. But there are a lot of people that don't live in a city and no amount of public transport is going to reach everywhere. There still needs to be vehicles of some type. I wish more rural roads in this country had bike lanes