Mercedes has repeatedly encountered new competitors in its history, says Development Board member Markus Schäfer. “But we are currently experiencing a new quality of competition: On the one hand, there are start-ups with large teams that do not have the usual traditional roots, as well as tech companies that are pushing into the automotive field. On the other hand, there are two new playing fields, electrification and digitization,” explains Schäfer in an interview with the F.A.Z.
Still, from his point of view, it is not that easy for newcomers to the automotive industry to be successful outside of their home country on the global market: “The car is probably the most complicated product on this planet because it has an incredible number of components, and there are now 100 million lines of program code for the software in each model.”