Dear reader,
Before you perhaps celebrate the holiday with the handcart, you will, as usual, get the latest insights into mobility events from us on Thursday. This time, without much preamble, our topics of the week:
Why Hyundai is not afraid of BYD and Co
What those affected by the Babboe recall should know
What demands professionals make of top employers like BMW
Top topic: “Others will lose – and not us”
Around 30 years ago, Hyundai was in a similar position to BYD, MG or Great Wall Motor today: The Koreans wanted to gain a foothold in Europe. It wasn’t easy. As a low-cost manufacturer, Hyundai slowly gained market share. Today the brand wants to score points with other values: lots of cars at reasonable prices. Electric cars in particular are equipped with a lot of high-end technology. Nevertheless, they do not appear in the top ten of the most sought-after electric vehicles in Europe. And now the aforementioned Chinese brands are coming with force. Will Hyundai then be left behind? European boss Michael Cole is calm in the interview: “Others will lose – and not us.”
Heads: Jumana Al-Sibai ++ Beate Bungartz ++ Ilka Horstmeier ++ Steffen Hoffmann ++ Martin Brudermüller
Foreign trade in electric cars continues to gain in importance. According to this, Germany has 786,000 electric vehicles Federal Statistical Office
Exported in 2023 – 58 percent more than a year before. Most go to the Netherlands (15.8 percent), followed by Great Britain (13.4 percent). But the import of electric cars is also flourishing, although less strongly than exports. Most of the 446,000 electric vehicles imported came, you guessed it, from China (29 percent).
Number of the week: 1 billion
The start-up Wayve does not rely on lidar sensors like those from Luminar. Instead, the British believe that cars can learn autonomous driving with the help of artificial intelligence. Sounds daring, but the idea has rich supporters: Softbank, Nvidia, Microsoft – Wayve receives a billion dollars from prominent investors. There has never been an AI deal of this magnitude in Europe; Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (43) immediately declared Great Britain an “AI superpower”.
Alice Weidel (45) wrote to him, he replied to Björn Höcke (52), and now Elon Musk (52) also intervened in a discussion about a verdict against Marie-Thérèse Kaiser (27): The Tesla boss interacts on X increasingly with AfD politicians. Kaiser was just sentenced to a 6,000 euro fine for incitement to hatred. “Afghanistan Refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for ‘unbureaucratic’ admission; Welcoming culture for gang rape?” she wrote in August 2021. Musk shared one Contribution
about the ruling and asked: “Are you saying the fine was imposed for repeating correct government statistics?” Was there anything wrong with your statement?” Musk doesn’t get away with it as an AfD campaign worker; But Tesla could undoubtedly use its focus better right now.
I wish you a happy holiday!
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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