The best April Fools

German-language publication Blick listed our April Fools joke article, “German carmakers show full e-mobility commitment,” among the best April Fools jokes of the automobile industry. Here, we give you serious insight into some of the best jokes from 1 April.

Were you fooled? Our April Fools joke involved some rebranding of names and logos in the German transport industry and government. Jokes aside, Germany’s Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructure could – in all seriousness – be credibly renamed “Federal Ministry for Electric Transport and Digital Infrastructure,” were it not for the German Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Andreas Scheuer (CSU), who began his ministry post by asking why we need to transition off fossil fuels at all.

Similarly, our imagined update of Germany’s biggest automakers redesigning their visual logos with environmentally-friendly packaging might not have been so darkly funny, were it not for the diesel scandal that famously brought attention to the German car industry’s disregard for public health and the environment. However, these guys are still making bigger steps towards electrification than the government ministry given the task of setting the standard.

Elsewhere on the web, April jokes were ricocheting around such as the “news” from elektronikpraxis.vogel.de (in German) claiming that Juice Technology had announced an electric vehicle charging station with an integrated orange juice press. Mmm, not a bad idea and we’d buy it, with a name like that.

A slightly more elaborate joke came from motor1.com (in German) with the news that: “The electric driving licence comes on 1 April 2020! In response to a question from Motor1.com Germany, Undersecretary of State Alfred E. Neumann (CSU), responsible at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, said the student demonstrations about climate change had prompted the government to “build a bridge with the new driving licence class E to reconcile all young people aged 16 and over with the car industry”. Hmmm….

Chinese smartphone manufacturer One Plus had a pretty good one where they claimed to be bringing out a super sports car called the “OnePlus Warp Car” with mutiple announcements on twitter. But as firstpost.com reported, the joke was even more elaborate than a Twitter campaign – The Chinese company’s co-founder Carl Pei also “announced” the new venture on OnePlus Forums: a Warp Charged OnePlus electric car.

In other 1 April reports, fleetpoint.org claimed Land Rover had installed the UK’s “most remote electric vehicle charging point” in Scotland’s Isle of Skye. “It may only be one single charging point that we’ve installed, but we’re not expecting there to be much of a queue…” And adsofbrands.net insisted that BMW i were launching “Lunar Paint”, that uses “revolutionary photovoltaic technology to harness the power of the moon and passively recharge your battery in the hours of darkness.”

Renault made a pretty good contribution for the day, claiming that the Zoe has gone beyond multi-terrain, to develop submarine capabilities. We loved the picture! But perhaps the biggest, albeit darkest joke came from the person who is arguably the world’s currently most famous 16-year old. Greta Thunberg announced:

After talking to so many of our leaders I have now realised that they have the climate crisis under control, they understand the emergency and are ready to act.
So I’ve now decided to stop striking and go back to school for good. I will no longer school strike on Fridays.
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 1, 2019