Category Archives: Poetry

German EV Sales Dominated by DS, MG and Audi

Since I wrote a post a few weeks back — looking at the huge Fiat EV sales numbers in Germany — I’ve been curious about the Stellantis rise (Fiat is a Stellantis brand).

It seems odd that Tesla is soaking up headlines in Germany while failing to deliver, shooting itself in the foot and above all lacking innovation for the tenth year in a row. Nobody meanwhile is writing about the Stellantis revolution delivering amazing results.

The Stellantis boss plans to launch 75 new fully electric models by 2030. The group’s annual sales should double by then to around 300 billion euros – with a double-digit return on sales.

Seventy five EV models within a decade. Wow.

Another one of Stellantis’ brands dominated last month’s EV sales in Germany, for example. This time it’s the French “DS” that takes honors.

Germany’s Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA — motor transport authority) published new figures that show DS registrations in November were up 301%, followed by MG with registrations up 124%, and then Audi up 109%.

That is a huge jump.

I’ll be honest, I know very little about this DS brand even after reading the October press releases.

Looking at the “luxury” marketing I don’t immediately see the DS appeal versus a Polestar, for example.

“Only you, a wealth of attentions”?

Wat.

Why is that all-black faceless woman staring into oblivion while the “only you” is a white man in white? Is that an apparition, like he’s meant to be seaside for mourning the death of his mistress?

It must sound and look better in French, or French translated into German.

My guess is this new DS EV is an amazing feat of engineering that sells itself because the marketing is… let’s just say “schnauzer”.

Since nobody seems to be writing about the DS having huge appeal in Germany, it’s even more curious how they’re crushing very recognizable and highly curated brands like VW and Audi.

It kind of reminds me how Tesla somehow manages to splash itself into Norwegian news, while the modest Nissan LEAF like Stellantis has quietly dominated that country’s all time EV sales.

The story of Nissan’s LEAF, the world’s first mass-market EV launched a decade ago, is woven into Norway. In 2018, for example, it was the country’s most-sold passenger car. A 2020 survey of 14,000 EV drivers in Norway – thousands of them Nissan LEAF owners – showed that nearly 95% are satisfied with their cars and 66% are encouraging their friends to follow their lead. Maria is definitely one of those drivers. “For those who have not yet switched, try this car. You won’t regret it,” she says. “As soon as you drive it, you’ll see how wonderful it is to drive a Nissan LEAF.”

Seriously, there’s great EV stuff going on if you look at the real numbers instead of cooked ones from the Tesla propaganda pulpit. Let’s see some more talk about super cool Nissan innovation for Norway’s snowy roads, engineering that fundamentally changes an EV that Norwegians buy the most.

e-4ORCE offers a powerful and controlled drive with a lightning-fast response and smooth acceleration with ultra-high-precision control at 1/10000th of a second. It guarantees driver and passenger comfort and steadiness while delivering thrill and velocity matched with a sports car.

Nissan innovation is impressive, especially now that their CEO is not crazy.

Massive Disney Kids Clothing Recall: Lead Poisoning Hazard

Nearly 90,000 items immediately must be pulled away from children.

The CPSC has disclosed that popular Disney prints were made by Bentex using lead.

…recall involves Bentex children’s clothing sets in nine different Disney themed styles.

They’ve been sold for a little less than a year by large American retailers such as T.J. Maxx, Ross, Burlington, Army and Air Force Exchange Service and of course Amazon.

Bentex seems to be a portmanteau of textiles from Bentonville, AR. The area is known for its lack of safety, described by historians as a high concentration of domestic terror cells (America First).

More than a hundred secret Ku Klux Klan chapters organized across Arkansas in the early 1920s [results of President Woodrow Wilson’s “America First” platform], including ten in northwest Arkansas.

[…]

Kenneth Barnes has compiled his research into an article titled “Another Look behind the Masks: The Ku Klux Klan in Bentonville, Arkansas, 1922-1926,”

That being said, the official business address for Bentex HQ is in NYC. It’s hard to tell from their contact info when the company really was created, by who and why.

Perhaps more to the point, the CPSC recall warning suggests people go to Bentex for more details and Bentex simply tells everyone to go to the CPSC.

WWII British Soldiers Successfully Deployed God and Sugar to Defeat Nazi Disinformation

It’s really a footnote to stories about Nazi Germany losing the war in 1942, yet refusing for years to quit… by brainwashing their youth into suicide missions.

Basically the Nazi children (Hitler jugend) were indoctrinated with fear and hate. Then they were forced into the unjust war their fathers already had lost, told they would be killed if they refused or surrendered.

A British soldier recounts what that looked like:

Sandy also spoke about encountering Germany’s child soldiers. He explained: “The other thing that we experienced at that time were the soldiers – German soldiers. They were 12 and 14-year-olds because everyone else was up on the Russian front. Some of them used to start crying because again they had been told that they would not be taken prisoner, that they would be killed.”

The tactics used then were oriented around establishing trust through two methods. British soldiers began feeding both a hunger for foundation/faith and for food:

“Women and kids were down in the air raid shelters. Hitler had already indoctrinated them and told them they would never be taken prisoner – that British troops would kill them. They wouldn’t come out of the air raid shelters. We used to shout down but they still wouldn’t come out.” However, their breakthrough came when the unit’s Roman Catholic padre, a Fr Costello who could speak several languages, persuaded the children and their mothers into the open. “You put a bar of chocolate in their hands and it alters the whole war – as far as the children are concerned,” he said.

As William Wordsworth wrote in his poem The Rainbow: “the Child is Father of the Man”.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.