Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Maybe a bit drastically expressed, or? I still consider Nordlys' opinion on many topics valuable. I would say he simply already has quite a bit of life experience. Currently, a lot is changing in a very short time. That can be exhausting. And also me – I guess I am younger than Nordlys – some new things annoy me. At least as long as I don’t fully understand them.

What you might be accused of, , is that you possibly no longer invest the same energy in getting into new things as you very likely did 30 years ago. But that is normal and not really bad. To stick with the example of electric cars: the advantages are (even now) so significant (and they are improving at a rapid pace) that they will eventually reach and convince you too. Until then, you can surely run your combustion engine car until the end.

If you occasionally feel like trying something new, I can recommend a podcast. If you google "Quaschning" and "Das ist eine gute Frage," you will find it quickly. Many of these "new exciting topics" are described very calmly there. Without agitation, panic, or a wagging finger. That helps me.

Butter peas are still discriminated against in your birthplace ??!!! :eek:

Really overused Gerd-Dieter joke.

Second car drive. But I don’t want a 40 thousand euro second car. This green urban academic lifestyle is not for people from the countryside.

We got ourselves a Twingo Electric three weeks ago, ideal second car, true. But it also fits the three of us and a normal shopping trip. I think you have it as a combustion engine? Since then, I’ve only taken out the previous sole combustion engine (B-Class) exactly once, but only because my wife and I each needed one. And the price? 14 thousand euros for a top-equipped demonstrator. With the massive differences in running costs, one really starts to wonder whether to cancel the B-Class without replacement and simply use rental cars when needed instead. By the way, we also live rather rurally, on the edge of the metropolitan area. The nearest large city (Erlangen) is 20 km away and the workplace (Fürth) about 40 km away. Together with home office as it is now, that would be sufficient for us.

E Corsa, sister-in-law has it, real range in winter with some heating and such and a few km on the highway 200 km. Then it’s over. Not enough for the airport and back. That’s all not practical at all.

The E-Corsa is simply not built for such distances either. Anyone who has to drive something like that and hasn’t at least spent 10 minutes using a search engine beforehand doesn’t deserve anything else than to be stranded. There are correspondingly (still) relatively expensive cars for that, or you go for a combustion engine. In 20 years there will either be a suitable charging network and the technology will be so mature that 15 minutes charging instead of 5 minutes “refueling” will be normal, or there will be synthetic fuel that will be blended in, or or or. There are many technologies currently being pursued. In the end, one can say that current combustion engines will no longer be produced like this.

And costs after subsidy were 28,000 for the car. 28k for a Corsa!

That’s how it is nowadays. Even a VW Up costs nearly 20k with a bit of equipment. I would have waited for an offer and leased the thing for 3 years for under 100€/month. But buying is always better, they say…

The man still drives an A6 diesel; at least you can go on a trip with that.

Yeah. Who doesn’t know that. Comparing an A6 combustion engine to an E-CORSA. You unfortunately didn’t understand the point.
The technology simply doesn’t allow such distances yet. I suppose it’s completely normal to drive 300-400km later on to then take a half-hour break and charge accordingly.

Our next car, it’s certain, will not be an electric car, max a plug-in hybrid. That’s okay for practical use if you only want to manage with one car.

Practice… nice word. It works for many people with an electric car as well. By now, there are charging stations everywhere in urban areas and daily routes usually don’t exceed 30-50 km. Such a car is therefore practical for many millions of people. It just takes some more time for that to reach rural areas. It has always been like that. Mobile communications, Internet, etc. Almost everything usually starts first in metropolitan areas.
One more tip regarding hybrids: I would watch politics carefully and strike at the latest next year. Because after that hybrids will probably be banned.

Yes, here in SH and next door MVP are mostly sparsely populated. The distances are considerable. It is normal for someone to have to drive 10 km to the supermarket. This also exists in Bavaria, Northeast Hesse, Brandenburg, or East Frisia.
Prejudices and, to T. also anger, yes. For what feels like ten years, city dwellers from well-to-do academic circles have been increasingly insistently telling us how we have to live, talk, and think without any idea of our lives. At work, you had colleagues. Now employees, because otherwise the diverse would be discriminated against. The Gypsy schnitzel was no longer allowed, meanwhile the schnitzel itself is no longer allowed. When we visit our child in Vienna, we should not fly, you should go by train, which would take 13 hours from here if everything goes well, which is also not so certain. Car? Best cargo bike, if necessary, e-car, never diesel, which is banned from the city. Agriculture, a crime against humans and animals, fishing likewise. Peta and Seashepherd know everything better. You want a house of your own, which was at first bourgeois, then un-eco-friendly, and in the end, you are to blame for global warming with your house, which by the way is objectively caused by at most 4% by Germany, and probably only 0.4% by the rural population. But that does not matter.
And at some point you find all this disgusting. So much hubris, hypocrisy, dogmatism, superiority stance.

Are you by any chance an old, white man?

(Question for myself, a country bumpkin who grew up in a village of 50 souls and yet is able to keep up with social progress)

Age is not a measure of hostility to progress, that is a prejudice. I know enough young, staunchly conservative people and enough older, very open-minded ones. And that skin color is a measure of much more than sunburn risk, one probably cannot say either. PS: I know you mean THE "old white man" but I can't stand such stereotypes anyway.