In 2025 the ADAC, the German automobile club, came to help broken-down drivers 3,691,813 times. A breakdown call came in every nine seconds.
Every year the club publishes its Pannenstatistik, its breakdown statistics. It counts the breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles of each model. A model series is included only if more than 7,000 of it were registered in at least two of its first ten years. The 2026 edition covers 158 models from 27 makers. It rates 74 model series as extremely reliable.
Tand, Tand / Ist das Gebilde von Menschenhand! Trinkets, trinkets, is the work of human hands! Theodor Fontane wrote Die Brück’ am Tay about the railway bridge in Scotland that collapsed in a storm on 28 December 1879. The ballad appeared in January 1880. It is often read in German schools.
In the poem the bridge is a pride. Und unser Stolz ist unsre Brück. And our pride is our bridge. The engine is trusted to win against the storm. Ein fester Kessel, ein doppelter Dampf, / Die bleiben Sieger in solchem Kampf. A sturdy boiler, a double steam, they will win such a fight. Three voices, the witches of Macbeth, destroy the bridge, and they have the last word.
A ballad that many German pupils read about a great work of engineering warns against trusting it too much.
On 9 December 1986 the Federal Court of Justice decided the Honda case. The plaintiffs’ son had been riding a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle on the autobahn from Nuremberg to Munich at 140 to 150 kilometers per hour. He died at the scene of the crash. The cause was a handlebar fairing made by another firm and fitted after the sale. At high speed it reduced the grip of the front wheel.
The court set out the Produktbeobachtungspflicht, the duty to observe the product. A manufacturer must keep itself informed about the consequences of how its product is used. The duty also covers accessories made by other firms, when they are necessary, intended or in common use.
German product safety law allows a product to be made available on the market only if it does not endanger people bei bestimmungsgemäßer oder vorhersehbarer Verwendung, in its intended or foreseeable use. The rule is in section 3 of the Product Safety Act.
The maker must think beyond the use it intended. It must also think of the use that people can be expected to make.
When Stiftung Warentest tests washing machines, Handhabung, handling, counts for 15 percent of the grade. The criteria listed with it include the controls, loading and unloading, filling in the detergent, the display of the remaining time, cleaning and the user manual. The testers even judge how loose the laundry is when it is taken out of the drum.
A German window usually opens in two ways with one handle. In one position the window tilts open at the top. In the other it swings open like a door. A gear turns the movement of the handle into the straight movement of rods.
A lock prevents a wrong move, the Fehlbedienungssperre. It stops the handle from going straight from the tilt position to the turn position. Tilt-and-turn fittings are still the most common choice in German housing and commercial building.
In 1990 Junghans brought the Mega 1 onto the market, the world’s first radio-controlled wristwatch. It receives the time from the DCF77 transmitter in Mainflingen, which is tied to the caesium clock of the national metrology institute in Braunschweig.
A Junghans brochure of 1990 promised for its MEGA radio-controlled clocks: Kein Nach- oder Umstellen der Uhr erforderlich. No resetting of the clock is needed. They even change to summer time and back by themselves.
In 1937 the Müller engineering firm in Schwelm developed a fuel can to a design by its chief engineer, Vinzenz Grünvogel. Its three handles let one person or two people carry it easily. When it was filled correctly, a pocket of air let it float if it fell into water.
The name comes from Jerry, Allied slang for the Germans.
Miele’s TwinDos system doses the detergent by itself, according to the hardness of the water, the size of the load and the type of soiling. A sensor shows on the display when the detergent container is empty.
Miele cites a study by the Öko-Institut, completed in 2013, on the savings from automatic dosing. The institute’s project dealt with dosing errors that come from consumer behavior.
durchdacht — thought through. Ein durchdachtes Produkt is high praise, and bis ins Detail durchdacht is higher praise still.
ausgeklügelt — cleverly worked out. Ein ausgeklügeltes System.
selbsterklärend — self-explanatory. Die Bedienung ist selbsterklärend, the controls explain themselves.
intuitiv bedienbar — intuitive to operate.
idiotensicher, narrensicher — idiot-proof, fool-proof.