Wordplay (58): Self-deception

At the weekend, the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) delighted our media with some good news. The headline in "Spiegel online" read: "Number of electric cars rising rapidly worldwide". In 2023, around 50 percent more cars with a battery as a source of driving energy were apparently newly registered than in the previous year. ZSW expects there to be 42 million electric cars worldwide. Climate experts will have taken note of this with horror.

That is no more than three percent of the global stock of vehicles with combustion engines. Two other factors also have a negative impact on the ZSW figure: It includes purely battery-electric vehicles, but also plug-in or so-called range extender systems. In most cases, combustion engines provide the traction current in both. In addition, these statistics generally consider passenger cars rather than commercial vehicles, which emit significantly more carbon dioxide.

But this only has a marginal effect on the main message of this apparent success story. More important is the realization that the electric drive is a convenient and attractive alternative to petrol and diesel, but that it will still take decades before it can have a positive impact on the climate. So let's just assume that the Institute wanted to sweeten the weekend with a friendly interpretation of what is actually a sobering reality. After all, self-deception is not a scientific category. (aum)