The tectonic plates are shifting underneath Germany's huge automobile industry.  The industry has just lost its huge bet on diesels, and Germany's champion exporters are hobbled. As fuel prices soared in the late 20th century, Japan's Toyota developed the first hybrid car, the Prius, followed by Honda and then a flood of other Japanese, Korean, U.S., and German (and other Euro) makers.  But the Germans, who invented the diesel engine, believed that the simpler and cheaper (and durable) diesel engine offered more promising opportunities and placed their R&D, manufacturing, and marketing bets accordingly. But a German federal court decision yesterday rings a death knell for that strategy and the huge financial, technological, and marketing bets that underlie it.  William Boston writes in the Wall Street Journal: A German court on Tuesday rang the death knell for certain diesel cars in a blow to the country's flagship...(Read Full Post)