Dear reader,
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (65) has just left, but at least there will be no shortage of German car giants in Beijing next week. The largest car show in the world is coming up. And there is a lot at stake in China, especially for German manufacturers. They are already losing ground in their most important market, and additional political pressure would only hurt. Germany’s chief car lobbyist Hildegard Müller (56) has just sent repeated prayers to Brussels that the EU might want to do so after all refrain from imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese vehicles. She shouldn’t be heard.
No other car country is so dependent on the Middle Kingdom. And no other company likes Volkswagen. The appropriate transition to our topics of the week:
Why Volkswagen is becoming a student of China
How Gernot Döllner turns Audi into a Porsche offshoot
Why Rivian has to fight for survival
Which is why Stellantis dealers are up in arms against their manufacturer
Top topic: Why Volkswagen is becoming a student of China
Volkswagen and China were a unique success story for four decades. Nowhere else does the car manufacturer sell anywhere near as many vehicles (four million per year), and no other market brings similar billions in profit into its coffers. But that also means: Volkswagen is as dependent on no other country as it is on China. It quickly seems threatening when you lose market leadership like the Wolfsburg-based company recently did. VW is too slow, too analog and too dependent on the combustion engine. CEO Oliver Blume (55) and China board member Ralf Brandstätter (55) are seeking salvation in ever new partnerships – with completely new power relationships. Michael Freitag and Margret Hucko impressively describe how Volkswagen becomes a student of China
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Heads: Carlos Tavares ++ Adolfo Urso ++ Katja Garcia Vila ++ Sam Salehpour ++ Michael Hajesch
Does nobody really want to buy electric cars anymore? One Market analysis
of the Center of Automotive Management suggests: The e-slump is primarily a German issue. New registrations of battery-powered cars in this country fell to 81,000 units in the first quarter, and Great Britain passed as the largest electric car market in Europe. Experts from the consultancy write that there is no way for manufacturers to avoid offering more affordable electric vehicles Beryls
. The CO2 requirements in the EU will change in 2025. In order to meet this requirement, around every fourth new car sold would have to be an electric car.
Number of the week: 56,000,000,000
At the beginning of the year, District Judge Kathaleen McCormick (44) cashed in a share package worth up to $56 billion for Tesla boss Elon Musk. Now Musk could get his gigabon back: Tesla wants to ask its shareholders to do this. How will this be received by those who have just been laid off?
Ghost driver of the week
Sebastian Walter (33), parliamentary group leader of the Left, is definitely not leaving the topic of Tesla unaffected. “We can’t depend on whether Elon Musk is in a good or bad mood,” he says, referring to the job cuts at the car manufacturer. Walter’s idiosyncratic idea: As a shareholder, the state could exert influence. We know this from Volkswagen and Lower Saxony. Brandenburg was to invest in the factory in Grünheide with a “high three-digit million sum”. Even if it’s just about Grünheide: What Walter wanted to achieve with Tesla, whose market value is still almost $500 billion, remains his secret.
Have a good week! And if you are in Beijing next week, please feel free to get in touch, maybe we can arrange an exchange on site.
Yours, Christoph Seyerlein
Do you have any wishes, suggestions or information that we should take care of journalistically? You can reach my colleagues in the Mobility team and me at manage.mobility@manager-magazin.de
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