Dear reader,
With a sword in his right hand, Donald Trump (78) celebrated to the sounds of “YMCA
“his return to the White House. An image that fit the weeks before his inauguration, as Trump had already rattled his saber quite a bit. For example, by threatening punitive tariffs on imports from abroad.
Non-American car manufacturers are therefore asking themselves the question: Will Trump come? as announced with customs duties? Things certainly won’t get any easier for Volkswagen and Co. in North America. As if there weren’t enough construction sites already. These are our topics of the week:
Why Volkswagen remains a restructuring case.
How the search for a new Lufthansa chief supervisor is complicated.
Why Oliver Zipse’s legacy at BMW is under scrutiny.
Topic of the week: Why Volkswagen remains a restructuring case
When Volkswagen’s management was able to agree on a savings plan with employees and unions before Christmas after several marathon negotiations, some spoke of a miracle. Especially since the very large cutlery that the top management around Oliver Blume (56) had threatened with remains in the drawer for the time being. Larger plants should not be closed. But how long will peace last? Blume has already achieved things that were considered unthinkable in Wolfsburg not long ago. In China, for example, he turned VW from a teacher into a student of local companies. My colleague Michael Freitag has researched that it shouldn’t stay that way: Blume is pursuing even more radical plans – The more difficult the renovation, the more likely they become
.
In China, 22.74 million new cars hit the roads last year, 8.6 percent more than in 2023. BYD was the clear market leader with almost 3.5 million units sold. The fact that Volkswagen took second place with a good 2.12 million new registrations sounds more positive at first glance than it is: Volkswagen’s sales in China fell by 2.7 percent in 2024. And when it comes to electric cars, which are becoming increasingly important in the world’s largest car market, is lagging far behind Europe’s number one car manufacturer
.
Deep Drive: Juicy and powerful
One of the common terms when it comes to electric cars is: range anxiety! After all, with an electric car you usually don’t get as far with one battery charge as with a full tank of diesel. The Norwegian Automobile Club is checking how many kilometers current electric models actually manage NAF
in what is supposed to be the “world’s largest electric car test”. The best result in tough conditions between minus six and plus seven degrees outside temperature was achieved in the latest edition of the Polestar 3 with 537 kilometers. This meant the car was only 23 kilometers short of its officially stated range.
His friend Elon Musk (53) caused even more of a stir than the saber-rattling Trump during the presidential party. According to the Tesla boss, what looked like a Hitler salute was nothing more than a gesture with which he expressed his gratitude to the audience.heart throws
“. It’s hard to believe that the Tesla boss wasn’t aware of the symbolism of his behavior. Musk described criticism of this as “legacy media propaganda
“, himself Wikipedia
he is now one of his enemies. It remains to be seen how all this will affect Tesla. His questionable appearances are always a risk for the company.
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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