Dear reader,
Right at the start of this week it was once again: all eyes on Wolfsburg. In mid-September, Volkswagen’s works council angrily rejected a report from my colleague Michael Freitag that the management’s austerity measures were likely to be far more severe than previously communicated. On Monday morning, works council boss Daniela Cavallo (49) raised the alarm herself and exactly in the same vein: everything is much worse.
We will of course inform you about the latest developments at Volkswagen in this newsletter. We have also prepared other topics of the week:
Topic of the week: What Europe’s car manufacturers can learn from China
The balance of power in the auto industry has recently shifted dramatically. “German manufacturers and suppliers are certainly not in the fast lane at the moment. The Chinese and the Koreans are currently driving there,” says Roland Berger consultant Norbert Dressler. With colleagues, he ventures an outlook on what will happen to the industry until 2040. Dressler and Felix Mogge spoke about this with my colleague Michael Freitag. Anyone who expects pure pessimism for Volkswagen, Mercedes and Co.: It’s worth reading. The consultants believe that there are also growth scenarios for the local industry. Of course, there is no way around making adjustments. “I don’t always have to think about what’s technically possible, but about what actually creates added value,” says Mogge and, together with Dressler, has further tips ready, what Europe’s car manufacturers can learn from China
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Heads: Ursula von der Leyen ++ Maria Grazia Davino ++ Michael Lohscheller ++ Edzard Reuter
Bidirectional charging has been a mobility buzzword for a long time. The idea: Electric cars should not only be able to absorb electricity, but also feed it into the grid and thus become mobile electricity storage devices. Politicians have been working on the legal framework for this for what feels like ages, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (55) recently announced: 2025
could actually be the case in Germany. The expectations are enormous: According to a Fraunhofer study commissioned by “Transportation & Environment”
Thanks to “vehicle-to-grid” technology, the costs of energy systems across the EU could be reduced by up to 22 billion euros annually.
Number of the week: 6:46,874
At the beginning it was about Chinese car manufacturers in the fast lane. What could be a better fit than a remarkable lap time on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring? They were currently building an ultra prototype of the Xiaomi SU7 into the asphalt of the “Green Hell”. 6:46.874 minutes, meaning the car was a good 20 seconds faster than a roughly comparable Porsche Taycan Turbo GT in September 2023 (7:07.55). To save the honor of the Zuffenhausen company, it should be said: Unlike the SU7, the Taycan was street legal. And: Porsche still holds the absolute Nordschleife record. In 2018, the 919 Hybrid Evo racing car raced to a time of 5:19.546 minutes.
Even off the race track, the Xiaomi SU7 is repeatedly compared to the Porsche Taycan. Because of its appearance, but also because of its driving characteristics. The cars are in completely different worlds when it comes to price: the SU7 is available in China for the equivalent of less than 40,000 euros. It wasn’t long ago that China’s auto industry was famous for its Copies of western vehicles
ridiculed. Pictures of vehicles like the “Ora Ballet Cat”, which is reminiscent of the VW Beetle, then made the rounds to everyone’s amusement. “Copycats” still exist in China today. But: Change is evident there too. The manufacturer Shandong caused a stir in China. Whose car “Yunlei” is reminiscent of, you may have already guessed: the Xiaomi SU7. The model was trending on social networks as “Redmi SU7”
– based on Xiaomi’s Redmi smartphones. How times have changed.
Have a good week.
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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