>

Not to mention exactly zero Ukrainian maintenance crews are trained on how to maintain a turbine powered tank... There might be some commonality with, I dunno, rotary wing crews? I have no idea how similar a tank turbine engine is to a helicopter turbine engine, but it's probably an awful lot closer than a damned diesel engine.
Like I've worked on all kinds of cars and then a number of commercial vehicles - there's a lot of common "themes" as long as you know "the big picture" of what things do what where and then have experience with air systems, hydraulics, etc - if someone threw a turbine engine at me I'd have no idea of "what are the main components and what do they do" 🤷‍♂️ - even as a guy who's been a mechanic on and off my whole life, that's a pretty high hurdle unless someone ships a damned (well written) service manual with the tank lol.
"Rush". It's been a year. >

I'm a German and my strong gut instincts tell me that these are only stalling tactic and Scholz ultimately will say 'No'. Maybe Scholz tries to stall the process only until our new secretary of defense has taken his oath and afterwards Scholz will blame him for saying 'No'. Or maybe he thinks the war will stop soon or any other nonsense, I don't know. I really hate this rat on the throne!
Edit: Well, well, well, this weasel really found a way to shift the responsibility upon someone else again! Scholz is such a disgusting and honourless pest! >

German here too, with some insight (know people who work at the Bundeswehr).
He won't say no, he is stalling for time. Because there are not enough tanks in working order to give and/or working infrastructure to maintain them.
Rheinmetall already accelerated their process to get Leopards in working order, and can only deliver 15! in the third quarter of this year.
The most likely scenario is that some Leopards that are currently in maintenance (about 30) for Slovakia/Czech Republic are going to Ukraine.
The Bundeswehr really does not have many Tanks, something around 260, and not even half of them are in working order.
I hope that makes it clear why Scholz is stalling for time. The tanks have to be repaired/build first.
EDIT:
Habeck said yesterday that other countries can give Ukraine their tanks, but they are waiting for a green light from the Americans.
Because the Americans are deciding what Ukraine gets in the end.
Like it or not, but that is how the game is played currently. >

Former StUffz here, you are only partly right. Rheinmetall is telling the german Government they need that long. KMW, the main manufacturer of the Leopard, already said that they would need less than a month to get a Brigade Size Force of Leopards ready for transfer. Its a big lobbyism work and deals between Rheinmetall and the German Government. Germany could send around 60-80 tanks for sure, but only if new expensive contracts are signed again in Rheinmetall's Favor. The whole German Defense Apparat is a clusterfuck >

It should also be noted that adding Leopards into the mix will not suddenly solve Ukraine's problems. 
Sure, every engagement with a modern western tank against, Russian tanks, is probably a win, but they need 300 to archive something, no 30 they most likely will get over the coming months.
Likely, add the same number of western artillery systems on top of that.
And a shitload of other stuff, that they get far too slow.
Western politics is still trying very hard to avoid getting dragged into the conflict, while we could argue that we are already in it. >

I think the more scary realization is that Europe can’t scrape together a few tanks >

This is why sending the few Leopards they have is a bad idea.
Meanwhile, the US is sitting on a few thousand Abrams that can be brought into service relatively quickly. >

Abrams are not suited for Ukrainian environment. They're quite a bit heavier, and most Soviet era bridges were designed specifically to prevent heavy armor from traversing them. Literally every bridge is going to be a trap for them, and force them into super long and round about ways to get back to the conflict.
On top of that, while the turbine engine of the Abrams offers some worthwhile advantages over diesel engines in tanks, one critical disadvantage is they're a nightmare to maintain and work on. 
Leopard 2s have their issues, but they're light enough for Ukrainian infrastructure, and they're easy enough to work on. 
Plus, a good deal of the US' old Abrams in storage are at the M1 standard, which uses a 105mm rifled barrel, and I don't think ammo for that is even made anymore...