Dear reader,
what a Wednesday. In the morning it was clear: Donald Trump (78) will be the 47th President of the United States of America. In the evening there was a big bang in Berlin: Chancellor Olaf Scholz (66) throws out Finance Minister Christian Lindner (45)., the traffic light is at the end. Scholz will ask the vote of confidence, and the Bundestag will probably decide on it on January 15, 2025. If there are new elections at the end of March, the serious crisis in the auto industry is likely to become a core issue in the upcoming lightning election campaign.
In the USA, Donald Trump’s opponents fear that he will degenerate into a dictatorship after his election. His supporters, on the other hand, could hardly be held back. Above all, his most famous campaign campaigner: Tesla boss Elon Musk (53) fired an endless volley of enthusiastic comments via his mouthpiece X. “The future will be fantastic,” believes Musk and recreated his kitchen sink meme (“Let that sink in
“) from the Twitter takeover in 2022 – this time with the Oval Office in the background.
Musk has every reason to be happy. Tesla shares rose by double digits, after Trump’s election victory became apparent. The shares of German car manufacturers, on the other hand, collapsed, and US business is likely to become even more complicated for them under Trump.
Our topics of the week:
Just like Audi wants to cut thousands of jobs.
Why Tesla is in a bizarre service hell in Hamburg.
Why Karl-Thomas Neumann lost faith in Auto Germany.
Topic of the week: How Audi also wants to cut thousands of jobs
Enlarge image
Take action: Audi boss Gernot Döllner
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
In the constant focus on the industrial dispute at VW, one thing should not be forgotten: the core brand is a major problem child for the Volkswagen Group, but it is not the only one. Audi, for example, was a guarantee of profits for a long time, but those days are over for now. Models arrive late, the order situation is poor, the plants are not working to capacity. CEO Oliver Blume (56) is said to have recently stated that Audi is a “restructuring case”. Brand boss Gernot Döllner (55) apparently sees this as an order to dismantle things – and his style is always offensive. Things are also getting uncomfortable in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. My colleague Michael Freitag reports exclusively, how Audi wants to cut thousands of jobs
.
Heads: Klaus Rosenfeld ++ Karl-Thomas Neumann ++ Florian Huettl ++ Marc Ferracci ++ Xavier Martinet
Enlarge image
“We will implement it in a socially responsible manner and with a sense of proportion”: Schaeffler boss Klaus Rosenfeld wants to cut jobs
Photo:
Bloomberg / Getty Images
Thousands of jobs are being cut also Klaus Rosenfeld (58). Schaeffler is cutting a total of 4,700 jobs, including 2,800 in Germany. Rosenfeld joins a group of German supplier bosses who are struggling with Germany as a location. Bosch, Continental, ZF Friedrichshafen, Hella, Brose… the list doesn’t seem to end.
Karl-Thomas Neumann (63) was once the boss at Continental, and later also Volkswagen boss in China and Opel CEO. Despite its slim stature, it was a heavyweight in automotive Germany for a long time. After being “stopped at full speed” in 2017 when attempting to electrify Opel, “KTN” took a different path. He became an investor. He sunk a lot of money into start-ups like Canoo or Door2Door and pumped up his phone book in return. Today he invests in an Israeli start-up and sits on the board of Polestar. Neumann sees German industry in a dilemma – and told my colleague Claas Tatje that why he wants to keep his hands off her
.
Neumann’s successor as Opel boss, Florian Huettl (47), is expected to switch fully to electric, but the German Opel factories will have little of it. “We cannot build electric cars in Germany that cost between 25,000 and 30,000 euros,” Huettl told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. With German wage and energy costs That’s just not possible today.
Maybe new subsidies would help. France’s Industry Minister Marc Ferracci (46) brings this into play. Unlike before, e-purchase bonuses should be coordinated across Europeto protect yourself from attacks from China.
Not too far away from Florian Huettl in Rüsselsheim, Xavier Martinet (46) will move into his new office next year. The previous Dacia manager is moving to Offenbach and will become the new European boss at Hyundai. Incumbent Michael Cole (60) resigns
and wants to enjoy “life after work” with his family in the UK.
Company: Tesla ++ BMW ++ Audi ++ Stellantis ++ Ford
Enlarge image
Closed Shop: The Tesla workshop in Hamburg has been closed for months
Photo: Hanno Bode / IMAGO
While Tesla is sailing at the Trump high on the stock market, the electric car manufacturer in Germany has to deal with more annoying issues. In Grünheide there is always stress with employee representatives. Management is now trying this 4 percent more salary for all employees to calm down. There also seems to be a problem with Tesla’s personnel outside of the Gigafactory: the workshop in Hamburg has been closed for months and customer frustration is increasing. Tesla blames the chaos on renovations, but there are signs that more than that is behind the bizarre service hell in Wandsbek
.
Listed car companies have little chance of hiding something when it comes to their key figures. For German car manufacturers, the interim reports after the third quarter have become an annoying chore in the last few days: BMW? Almost lost profit compared to the previous year 84 percent a. Audi? Even 91 percent. Mercedes already had a slump in profits in its passenger car business two weeks ago 64 percent reported; It was similar to that Volkswagen Group issued.
However, a little shell playing is possible when it comes to accounting: Stellantis, the car company with brands such as Peugeot, Fiat and Opel, is listed on the stock exchange, but still does not report any quarterly profits or losses. As one can guess, the complete Stellantis figures after the third quarter may not have looked particularly great. A Sales fell by 27 percent at least the company admitted.
Ford will end production of the Focus in Saarlouis in 2025. Employment protection should still apply to 1,000 employees until 2032. The company and the works council are negotiating a suitable transfer company. Rare in these times: works council leader Markus Thal speaks of positive signals, “Ford 1000” is taking shape in Saarland. Instead of car production, a service center for drive batteries, a distribution center for spare parts and a service parts center are planned.
More mobility: Pon, Porsche and politics
Enlarge image
Premium racing bikes from Cervélo: They will no longer be built in Mainz in the future
Photo: Roth / CV / picture alliance
“Factory closure” is an emotive word in the automotive world. But there is also a crisis elsewhere, for example on two wheels. The Dutch bicycle giant Pon.Bike is now closing one of its two German factories in Mainz. You had it There are still big plans when production starts in July 2022.
Varta is fighting to survive. As hoped, the Swabian battery manufacturer is now receiving a boost from Porsche. The Federal Cartel Office allows the sports car manufacturer, Varta’s car battery subsidiary V4Drive Battery to take over.
There is also a ray of hope for the badly hit battery cell manufacturer Northvolt. The state of Schleswig-Holstein wants the promised funding to the Swedes in 2024 for the planned factory in Heide. The country wants to finance the promised 137 million euros through the Ukraine emergency loan. In a second step, the federal government is to provide Northvolt with a further 564 million euros.
If you have any questions or suggestions about this newsletter, please feel free to write to us manage.mobility@manager-magazin.de
. Of course, if you have any tips or suggestions for research. We look forward to your message.
Deep Drive: How useful was the environmental bonus?
Enlarge image
Electric boost: The environmental bonus was used to support 1.4 million purely battery-powered cars, 770,000 plug-in hybrids and 475 hydrogen vehicles in Germany
Photo: FrankHoermann / Sven Simon / IMAGO / Sven Simon
The fact that Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (55) collected the “environmental bonus” for electric cars almost a year ago in a cloak-and-dagger campaign is still resented by quite a few people in the car industry. Now his ministry has one Evaluation report
published on the subsidy program. On 201 pages you can read what the 10.2 billion euros in funding achieved between summer 2016 and winter 2023. Incomplete summary: At 44 million tons, the CO₂ savings achieved were lower than expected. People with above-average income benefited disproportionately from the bonus: almost a third of the successful applicants had a monthly net income of more than 6,000 euros.
Number of the week: 17.3
The Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) publishes a once a year “Charging network ranking”
and uses the opportunity to make one of his favorite appeals: It is not the car manufacturers that are slowing down electromobility, but the slow expansion of the public charging infrastructure. This time too, the VDA says: “The need for action is still great.” After all, the association has determined that the “gap between supply and demand for charging options for electric cars” is becoming smaller. A year ago there were around 21 electric cars per charging point in Germany, this time there were only 17.3.
Ghost driver of the week
Enlarge image
Blue Sky Going? Nio boss William Li could soften his electric strategy outside of China
Photo: Tatan Syuflana / AP
On Friday, the Chinese media “Yicai” reported that electric car manufacturer Nio wanted to offer hybrids outside of China with its Firefly sub-brand. Does “Blue sky coming”, Nio’s promise to free cities from smog with electric cars, no longer apply? And Nio’s strategy with removable batteries? The manufacturer denied it. On Monday, the news agency reported Reuters
anyway. Major investor CYVN from Abu Dhabi is said to have suggested the step to Nio in order to stimulate expansion. Outside China, founder William Li (50) and his people are defiant technically remarkable vehicles
a real ghost ride so far. In Europe, Nio has, according to data service providers Jato
In September, just 110 cars were put on the road. Meanwhile, MG sold 6,184 units of the MG3; no other Chinese model was more successful. Under the hood, of course, it has a hybrid drive.
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
.
You can also find our newsletter “manage:mobility”. here on our website.