In case anyone doesn't get it yet, Environmentalism wants to kill the car

[Inspector]

Just in case anyone doesn't get it yet, the environmentalists are hell bent on killing the car. And they're going to start with the fun ones. But of course they won't stop there.

-Inspector

[Kriegsgefahrzustand]

They're hell bent on killing everyone and everything, but they want you to suffer first.

I suppose the scenario they invision goes something like this:

First you take away their ability to enjoy fine tobacco products, then you go after red meat. Finally you take away their cars. After all that, they'll beg for death.

Take away everything that a man loves, and when you ask for his life, he'll have no reason left to fight for it.

[Inspector]

Exactly so. I couldn't have put it better myself.

The journalist in that first article is wrong, by the way: there is nothing at all mistaken or inconsistent with the environmentalists' efforts to kill performance: accelerating a car quickly and going high speed will always use more energy and create more CO2 than accelerating slowly and going low speed. That will be true no matter what technology or efficiency is developed. It will always use less to drive like an old lady, and use even less to not drive at all. That is some pretty basic laws-of-physics stuff.

What the journalist misses is that environmentalism, as such, is incompatible with cars (and civilization) in general and performance cars in specific. There is no getting around that fact and if the best resistance he can offer is petty attempts to argue minutia while accepting the environmentalists' core premises, then his (and my) hobby is doomed. (not to mention that whole, you know, civilization thing)