I’d be very curious to hear how the would argue for _that_.
Oh and their fuel, the electricity ? Mostly comes from coal power plants which, despite TRIPLE the efficientcy actually still managed to produce more CO2 ...
Electrical cars are heavier because of the batteries, so in practice it's not quite triple the efficiency.
Electrical cars are very environmentally friendly at the location they're used. On balance, they're probably about even or slightly worse than petrol cars.
There's a simplification many economists argue for. In our modern world, price is a proxy for energy expenditure, which is what mostly matters when it comes to pollution. Therefore cheapest thing (measured over it's lifetime of course) is going to be the most environmentally friendly. This price takes many more things into account than any analysis ever will and therefore be more accurate. By that measure, electrical cars definitely lose by around a factor of 2 at the moment.
>> ..German automative engineers, they will be able to show ..
Note that I personally don't necessarily agree, but the arguments are not weak.
Another point is that a good Diesel engine, and they have apparently fixed the emissions problems, is actually amazingly efficient, and on longer distances beats electric vehicles when you take into account the whole fuel to wheel chain for the current grid mix.
When you look at the greater weight (= production costs = environmental impact) of electric vehicles, that has to be amortised over the life of the vehicle. When the vehicle does mostly long distance, it is not going to be able to do that, because the Diesel is actually more efficient.
However, vehicles that primarily do short distances tend to actually not be driven much at all, they mostly sit around taking up parking space. So those aren't going to amortise the greater environmental investment either.
The exception would be vehicles that get driven a lot, but over short distances, so buses and taxis, but that's not a huge percentage of the total fleet. (And gives you a link between electric and self-driving, a link that otherwise doesn't make a lot of sense: converting to self-driving on-demand/rental cars is one of the ways to get electric to have a positive total impact).
How about: the car (Carl Benz)? And the motorcycle (Daimler)?
All the common (and uncommon) engine types: Otto, Diesel, Wankel.
More recently, always-on four wheel drive (Quattro). I am sure I am leaving out a ton of innovation in engine and drivetrain technologies.
> Germany's car makers are great at marketing
That's a fairly new development. German car companies were (and still are) very much engineering led. See, for example, Ferdinand Porsche or more recently Piëch.
What you are describing is the US car industry, which has been absolutely marketing-dominated since at least the 50s.
In fact, I'd argue that the current problems are, if anything, a result of the engineering-centeredness, which has a hard time dealing with disruptive innovation. A key feature of a disruptive innovation is that it is demonstrably worse than the incumbent, so engineers will dismiss it as "not good enough" and "toy", and be right. They just miss that there are new criteria, at which the new innovation beats the pants off the old.
I am pretty sure that if you discuss the current situation with German automative engineers, they will be able to show to you very convincingly that electric cars are a joke, don't perform adequately and aren't even environmentally superior. And that electric cars and particularly self-driving cars are marketing gimmicks.
But customer sentiment has shifted (marketing side) and technology and engineering will follow.