I think there is a misunderstanding here about the "lose their job" part. This is not about a factory floor worker getting fired for buying the wrong brand of car (they might even take public transport to work), it's about a general fear that if the car industry breaks down, everything breaks down. Imagine how people in silicon valley would feels if there was a risk of all forms of electronic communications getting phased out. They might be quite reluctant to adopt that newfangled form of messaging by avian carriers that some Hogwarts company is bringing to market.

Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/report-vw-sees-elect...

Speaking of the fears: http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/studie-was-den-deu....

Maybe Germans are afraid of many things, but none of those listed things in the article have something to do the buying electric vehicles. Regarding "warning the public", from your statement I would have assumed a larger effort than simply mentioning a possible loss of jobs in production in an interview.

The report in the Post may appear soft, however, this is how German media treated the same report: http://www.focus.de/auto/elektroauto/auto-vw-personalchef-we...

The title translated: "The awful truth: Electric cars destroy jobs".

That's just clickbait, it's not something that the guy actually said.

Just two paragraphs in the article says that they expect at least every 4th car to be electric by 2025, and that this of course means different supply requirements which they have to start planning for now. That's just regular market forecast planning.