Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Sinulle, joka haluat enemmän kuin pelkän kuntosalin. Elixialla pysyt motivoituneena ammattitaitoisten ohjaajien ja yli 70 erilaisen ryhmäliikuntatunnin avulla. Saat personal trainerin tukea silloin, kun sitä tarvitset ja olet osa treeniyhteisöä, jossa jokainen kannustaa sinua. Tutustu Suomen monipuolisimpaan liikuntatarjontaan ja aloita harjoittelu osoitteessa elixia.fi. Motivation included.
Chapter 2: What historical significance does Zwickau hold in the automotive industry?
You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Bowlby, this week on assignments in Zwickau in Eastern Germany. In Zwickau, the main museum is devoted to the town's driving force. Ja da hat man sich erinnert, Mensch, hier in Zwickau, da gab es doch zwei Autofirmen. Wisst ihr noch wie die hieß?
Jokainen uusi generaatio paikallisista lapsista on esitetty tässä paikassa yllättävän historiallisen moottorimuotoilun. Viimeisellä maailmalla se oli Audiin syntyminen, joka teki kaunisista, suuresti poliittisia saluunia, joita me näemme täällä, ja joita maailman nopeimmat sportiilijat tekevät.
After the war history imposed a grating handbrake turn. Zwickau became part of communist East Germany, producing the Trabant car or Trabi, a byword for smelly two-stroke engines and western jokes about eastern motoring backwardness. Though there were some Trabi enthusiasts who defiantly raced their cars at Monte Carlo.
Chapter 3: How did the fall of communism impact car culture in Germany?
Then came 1989, the fall of the wall, the end of communism. I had family here and visited Zwickau soon afterwards. The most immediately visible change was new petrol stations. My relatives still drove a Trabi, but were constantly overtaken by hundreds of second-hand Western cars, swiftly imported as German road reunification raced ahead.
Toivottavasti uusi uusi elokuvan jälkeen, kun Volkswagen on tullut täältä rakentamaan uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta uutta
German Chancellor Angela Merkel no less visited Zwickaus VW factory as it converted from petrol to electric car production. It was part, she said, of a mobilitätswende, a big change in mobility, a conscious echo of what people called the political wende or change of 1989.
Zwickaus motor museum duly marked this change, says curator Andre Meyer, presenting it as the latest chapter in the town's manufacturing progress. This is one of the prototypes from Zwickau, and it's from 2018. And then two years later, in 2020, serial production would start, and it would ban the combustion engine from Zwickau entirely, which has head-shaped production here for more than a century.
Mutta tällä hetkellä tarina tulee uudelleen uuteen dramaan, joka on erittäin tärkeää ympäristön Eurooppaan. Tämä muuttaminen eläintekijöiden kanssa, jolla säästetään etäkulmasta, on kuitenkin todella kontroversioitavaa tänään maailmassa. Monet Suomessa huomioivat, etteivät he pysty kestämään eläintekijöiden kanssa.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do electric cars face in the German market?
Andrei Meier sanoo, että tulevaisuus moottorimuotoilusta täällä on nyt täynnä yllättymistä. Eikä kukaan tiedä. Museumissa teemme historiaa. Emme sano, että tämä on tulevaisuus. Mutta oletko miettinyt, että historia voisi tulla loppuun? Olemme miettineet.
Nyt huomiota on se, että eläinmobiili- tulevaisuudessa Suomessa vahvistettuna, Zwickaus moottori ei voi elää. Tällainen huomiota luo mahdollisen uuden järjestelmän Euroopan poliitikassa. Vastuullisuus vihreään poliisiin ja vahvistus petroliinikäyntiin.
You can sense Zwickaus political tensions here in the main square in front of the town hall. It's a Monday evening. Most citizens are catching trams to go home from work or stopping for a chat. But at one end of the square a meeting celebrating international women's rights is packing up.
At the other end are very different groups preparing for its small but regular Monday demonstrations. They've got flags, drums and loudspeakers. They're proclaiming friendship with Russia, demanding the resignation of the national government and promising what they call the maintenance of our traditions. Several police cars are positioned nervously nearby.
This kind of demonstration has threatened at times to drum dream campaigners out of local politics. The biggest hope for me was that we are a thousand people in the city. I am not alone as a progressive young guy in cities like Zwickau.
Green politics has historically been strong in Germany, with Greens joining coalition governments in Berlin. And you might have thought that a place where the main source of employment is producing electric cars would be full of Green enthusiasts, like Jakob Springfelt. His dad works at the VW factory, and he as a teenager helped found a group called Fridays for Future, campaigning on climate change.
Still only in his early twenties, he's become well known across Germany for his warnings about where politics is heading. He soon found climate change campaigning in Zwickau met sharp local hostility.
Neonazisit ja myös toiset suomalaiset ihmiset tekevät demonstraatioita meidän kliimatemonstraatioimme Suomessa. He postoivat minun puolestani sosiaalisessa mediassa ja neonazisit pysyvät ympäri meidän asemamme. Vahvistelijat?
Kyllä. Todella iso tuntee pahaa paljon nuorilaisilta.
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Chapter 5: How are political tensions shaping the future of motoring in Zwickau?
Many regret the use of the harsh language of crime to heat up the debate, but it still resonates in a country deeply worried about the future of high-quality jobs once the mainstay of German prosperity. The debate's happening everywhere in Zwickau, including among those at the huge Volkswagen factory now making only electric cars. Exactly. I was really happy. I always say when I tell someone that that was my lottery win.
Peter Springfeld is about to retire from VW. He still remembers vividly the joy he felt in the early 1990s when he got one of the prized jobs at Zwickaus new car factory. He showed me old photos of the production line.
But as production shifted to electric vehicles a little under a decade ago, he and his colleagues began to have doubts about the quality and overall appeal of electric cars, especially to those who see themselves as lovers of the internal combustion engine. What do the cars look like? Cars don't look nice.
And inside there's just a small display here and there. There was also a problem, especially with the Volkswagen cars, there were problems with the software. But with the Chinese cars, they seem to work better somehow.
An early sense then that these new cars would lack appeal and that Chinese competition might completely undermine that electric change promoted by Angela Merkel. Peter Sun Jakob, the climate change campaigner, has watched how the AFD has exploited this anxiety among the workforce, challenging the power of traditional trade unions.
And that, he says, also raises painful questions for green campaigners about losing touch with working people. The AFD becomes more and more a party for the workers. A lot of democratic party people don't go in the factories and speak with the people.
It sounds from what you're saying as if you've been through personal experiences since you got involved in politics that have made you rethink a lot of your views. I don't want to make politics only for my own bubble.
There's been a lot of focus on the idea of petrol cars and the idea that it would be illegal to own a petrol car is the claim that's made. Do you think this is a big issue? Especially in Zwickau, the people see the cars as a symbol of freedom. And now it becomes a sign for economic wealth and good living in Zwickau.
For us it is a question of freedom. Local AFD MP Matthias Morsdorf is also alert to car's symbolic power. We don't like Brussels with all the law restrictions. Brussels is the EU. It's the EU, yes, of course. So the car is a powerful symbol, you think? The petrol car?
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Chapter 6: What role do populist parties play in the current automotive debate?
I was always a politically interested person.
I've always been a politically interested person. In my job as branch manager here for the fashion business, I was part of the city center. And of course, in this context, I was also more interested in topics such as city development, retail locations, parking fees. And that just always bothered me when others decided about things that concerned me.
She too hasn't escaped the growing polarisation and rancour, needing personal protection after an anonymous death threat. She sees one of her key roles as trying to hold things together as the town faces necessary change.
You have to be able to develop a city, to develop society. And of course you always have to do it in such a way that everybody who lives in the city feels accepted. But we must not stop modernizing our city or modernizing society. Are women better at understanding this future? Is it men who cling more to the idea of the petrol car, the old style motoring?
Is this primarily a male discussion? Definitely yes. Men have a completely different relationship with their cars. I really like driving my electric car. It really suits me. But I think women are a bit more pragmatic when it comes to this kind of car, as in the first place it's a way of getting from A to B.
Constance Arnt has seen a compelling vision of this attractive electric mobility future, but in her travels to China, not locally in Germany. That, she believes, has frightening implications for Zwickau. The Chinese are much, much further on. They are very clever. And if we don't stick to this, then in ten years there will be no German or European car industry.
Sitten ostamme, kuten ostamme huoneita, joita on tehty Aasissa, myös autoja, joita on tehty Aasissa. Se on erinomainen, mitä sinä sanot. Olet varma, että 10 vuotta sitten voisi olla ei-Germannin auto-yhteisö, jos me jatketaan näin.
That's not what I'm hoping for. But I was in Shanghai in China in 2024 and I just saw what was going on on the streets there. And we all know how it was in the textile industry, household appliances, entertainment technology. There are no relevant European manufacturers anymore. And for a town like Zwickau, a motor town with a history going back over a century, that must be especially worrying.
Tietysti, jos meillä ei ole enää auto-industria täällä, niin iso osa meidän regionaalista ekonomiä kääntyy meille. Ihmiset ovat rauhoittuneita siitä, mitä he viettävät, ja uskovat, että jos me jatketaan tekemään petro-autoja, me voimme pyrkiä lopettamaan tämän prosessin. Tuo rauha, että maanmuutoksen kääntymä on rauhoittunut, näyttää, kuinka tulevaisuus autoa on kasvattu poliittisessa suhteessa.
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Chapter 7: How is the Czech Republic responding to the rise of electric vehicles?
That's certainly what we found. Our repeated requests for an interview with the motorists about even their most basic policies were rejected. Eventually we were told that only Mr Matsinka could answer such questions, and he was too busy.
We headed out in search of motorist supporters. They're great, said one man, but hurried away from our microphone and wouldn't talk. Others seemed less keen, but acknowledged the party's impact. Were you surprised they did well, got into the government?
Olin hieman yllättynyt. En olisi odottanut heitä olemaan parlamentissa. Kuka valitsee heitä? Tiedätkö ihmisiä, jotka valitsevat heitä? Itse asiassa minä valitsen heitä. Olin melko syvällä siitä. Oletko keskustellut niiden kanssa? Mitä he sanoivat? He ajattelivat, että he voisivat olla saavutuksia eurooppalaisesta ideologiasta tai jotain.
Do you think the focus on things like keeping petrol cars, not having electric cars, can be popular? Well, for some people, yes, maybe. Do you know people who voted for them? A lot of people seriously considered it as an option to, let's say, old politics, thinking that they are some kind of a new wave or something.
The Motorist Party did best among younger urban men and also rural, heavily car-dependent voters, warming to party slogans such as Motoring is an ideology of normal life. Green campaigners are now discussing what all this means.
Ruumiin kafeissa Praagassa Charles-yliopistossa opiskelijat keskustelevat, miten moottorien haastatteluun riittää. Kun lukee moottorien programmiä, se on todella helppoa. Monet ihmisiä näyttävät olevan melko rauhoita ideaan, että he voivat olla sanoneet, että heidän täytyy antaa moottorien haastatteluun.
Luulen, että se on täysin ymmärrettävää, ja vastauksena tästä pitäisi olla, että valtio tarjoaa enemmän kaupunkiturvallisuutta ihmisille, jotka elävät maanomaisuudessaan. Kerro meille, kuka sinä olet ja miksi sinulla on pinnut yliopistosi slogan anti-motorista. Miksi olet tehnyt sitä?
Okei, olen Katerina. Slogan on antimotorista, mikä tarkoittaa, että olemme vastaamassa ideaa, että rikkojen ihmiset vaikuttavat poliitikseen. Esimerkiksi kohdallisuus, jossa he järjestävät tietoja toisista energiasta. Oletko valmis argumenttiin? Olemme valmiita ottaa tulevaisuutemme takaisin.
Here in the political centre of Prague, around the parliament and government area, impressive cars can be seen whisking motorist ministers to their appointments. Also around here are the offices of other parties, trying to work out how to respond to the new mood in politics and public opinion. And when you're an MP for the Green Party, you're feeling the pressure more than most. I'm Gabriela Zvarovska, I'm an MP for Czech Greens, for the Prague constituency, and I'm also co-chair of the Green Party.
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