The real mistake of the German car industry: That’s why former VW boss Winterkorn is the wrong target

08/05/2018

The real mistake of the German car industry Therefore, former VW boss Winterkorn is the wrong target

An opinion piece by Markus Schön

DPA

In the sights of the media: Martin Winterkorn

If one pursued various tabloid media these days, one could get the impression, the former chief executive of the VWCorporation, Martin Winterkorn, is the biggest criminal of the present. In the US, he is being searched for warrants, the FBI is scheduled for him and his successor has negotiated a deal with the US judiciary, which assures him of impunity. Even individual representatives of German politics at least fall into satisfaction, some in jubilation, because a German citizen is to be asked by the US judiciary.

Markus Schön

DVMA

Markus Schön is managing director of DVAM Asset Management GmbH, The company deals with individual asset management and strategic financial management on a predominantly long-term, macroeconomic basis. Currently, Markus Schön has a book about Donald Trump’s economic policy “Tweet to the planned economywritten.

It goes – of course – to the Diesel exhaust affair, which has already led to arrests and fines billions. However, these payments have not been used to improve the environment, but rather in the US, one of the world’s ecologically most polluted economies, as a weakening of the superior German, perhaps European, automotive sector. In addition, rising CO2 emissions from increased sales of gasoline engines demonstrate the importance of diesel technology in the current economic structure.

Electric cars are rolling nuclear power plants

Unfortunately, too many people, especially politicians, fall for the alleged solution to the problem: the electromobility, That could not prevail against the internal combustion engines even more than 100 years ago and its fundamental disadvantages have not changed – not even by the fact that an electric mobility provider stirs the marketing drum particularly loudly. Even Tesla founder Elon Musk can not override fundamental economic principles.

A company is only able to survive if it creates added value from the customer’s point of view, which can be earned in addition to a profit margin. The latter was at Tesla never the case, which is at least a concrete indication of ultimately missing customer benefits. Added value is also not achieved by this drive concept because, on the one hand, the flexibility aimed at with individual mobility can not be achieved due to the very limited range. On the other hand, electric vehicles are environmentally friendly rolling nuclear power plants in miniature. They consume so much more energy during their production process that they could drive 30,000 to 40,000 kilometers on a conventional vehicle. In addition, the degradation of the raw materials needed for the highly toxic batteries is extremely harmful to the environment, and the problem of disposing of the limited-life and ecologically extremely disadvantageous batteries is like nuclear waste completely unsolved.

What the real scandal is

That’s why the world’s leading German automotive industry should not run after a technologically flawed fashion theme or rely on politically misguided subsidy incentives, but finally use their technological superiority to develop truly sustainable solutions that will continue to provide the necessary customer value in individual mobility. The solution for this is obvious and is called hydrogen propulsion.

This has been researched for more than 30 years and the real scandal is that there is no real progress in the propulsion technology and distribution logistics of the energy carrier. This is certainly one of the major mistakes of the German automotive industry, for which Martin Winterkorn also bears considerable responsibility. By playing a key role in raising expectations of diesel technology, which is not possible in practice, research and development resources have been wasted that are now lacking in advancing truly innovative mobility concepts. To criticize this and to demand the assumption of responsibility is completely correct. However, this must not lead to jubilation over a US warrant for a German citizen by the German policy, such as the consistent setting of maladministration.

Focusing on electromobility is a political aberration that prevents innovation and can become a risk to the future viability of the automotive industry, which is so important for Germany. If you do not react swiftly now, the German economy will be exposed to dangers both politically and economically whose long-term negative effects can not yet be estimated.

Markus Schön is Managing Director of DVAM Vermögensverwaltung GmbH and member of the influencers from manager-magazin.de. Nevertheless, this column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial staff of the manager magazin.

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