A Lot of People Were Protesting Cars in Germany Over the Weekend, but SUVs Received Special Attention

Thousands of people amassed in Germany over the weekend to protest the automotive industry. Ground Zero was in Frankfurt, with an estimated 15,000-25,000 people marching past the Frankfurt Motor Show holding signs condemning the internal combustion motor and promoting environmental awareness. Dozens of people also made it onto the trade show to demand the event be shut down or reformatted to focus entirely on eco-friendly transportation.

Sport-utility vehicles and crossovers were also a focal point of activist ire. Many called for their banishment from German cities after four pedestrians, including a three-year-old boy, were fatally struck by a Porsche Macan earlier this month in Berlin. However, the segment’s slightly higher dependance upon fuel was also a sore spot for many activists.

“Such tank-like cars do not belong in cities,” Stephan von Dassel, Green politician, bicycle enthusiast, and mayor of Berlin’s Mitte district, tweeted in German. “They are ‘climate killers’, even without accidents, every driving error becomes a life-threatening danger for innocent people.”

Thanks to its highly publicized emissions scandal, Volkswagen has found itself a repeat target for activists. In Frankfurt, many were able to get inside the show to keep that tradition alive — resulting in people climbing atop vehicles in the VW booth to chant environmental slogans and hoist protest signs. BMW received similar attention. The main stage was also stormed by activists carrying anti-automobile banners when German chancellor Angela Merkel opened the trade show to the public.

Most protestors were simply demanding a “climate-friendly transport revolution” and a ban on sport-utility vehicles — measures that have become more popular in recent years.

“German car companies invested more money in advertising for SUVs than in all other car segments combined,” Benjamin Stephan, who works on transportation issues for Greenpeace, told the Los Angeles Times. “They’re fueling the rising demand for SUVs with these ads and doing everything they can to get people to buy these big cars because of the fat profit margins”

“We’re in the middle of a climate crisis, and the car industry just doesn’t get it,” he continued. “They’re here celebrating their gas guzzlers instead of looking for ways to get away from combustion engines.”

Greenpeace also released a statement prior to the protests, condemning manufacturers for continuing to sell so many vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel fuel. It also faulted Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW for producing a combined global carbon footprint of 878 million tons of C02 in 2018, a figure it said exceeded the overall emissions of Germany within the same timeframe.

We’ve repeatedly noted that shopping your way out of an environmental issue creates a myriad of new problems. Major changes often have unintended consequences and shifting toward EVs overnight while banning internal combustion vehicles (even in select areas) would temporarily upend the economy and require a massive expenditure of energy, converting otherwise functional automobiles into scrap. But the automotive industry is also guilty of pushing for higher-margin vehicles and promoting SUV/CUVs like mad — vehicles that, averaged out, are not as energy efficient as a less weighty car — and can be faulted for trying to circumvent regulatory mandates in the past.

As you might expect, people hold opposing viewpoints on the issue.

“It’s a really stupid idea to ban SUVs from the cities,” Razak el Beja, a naturalized German and VW Tourag owner who moved from Tunisia 50 years ago to work as a car mechanic, told the LA Times. “The environment is already a mess. What’s the point of stopping SUVs from coming into the city when you have delivery trucks and 18-wheelers everywhere as well?”

According to the outlet, he was one of the few SUV drivers openly willing to speak to the press.

Bernhard Mattes, the outgoing head of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, announced his resignation as protestors began to descend on Frankfurt. On Thursday, he also suggested that automotive trade shows may no longer be able to exist if automakers continue to bow out of trade shows and environmental activists continue requesting an eco-friendly shift.

“We have made several changes already,” he said. “It’s not about how many cars, how many visitors, how many square [meters]. First we have to agree on a fresh concept, then decide [where] to display this best.”

Interestingly, not every group was there to press for EVs. Activist group Sand in the Gearbox claims that all cars are archaic forms of transportation, including electrics. It was present in Frankfurt to encourage people to abandon automobiles entirely. “Electric cars are far less ecological than the car industry is assuming,” group organizer Tina Velo told the Financial Times.

“What they present here is not the model of the future,” she continued. “All the innovations are coming now from California, China, they are much more advanced, and the German car industry is coming way too late.”

In truth, Germany is likely on the cutting edge of car technology. FT reported that the German Economic Institute in Cologne recently published analysis proving that the country’s automotive industry filed almost half of all patents in the last year, up from about 30 per cent a decade earlier. Meanwhile, innovations from Germany’s other industrial sectors have dropped significantly.

[Images: eugeniusro/Shutterstock]