Volkswagen is trying to implement a comprehensive cost-cutting programme with up to 100,000 job losses, double the amount previously planned, by 2030 and the potential contraction or closure of several plants.
German cars have become the same plastic crap with the same spying software, but still at double the price.
Still would buy a 2010 level German car if they would still make it.
They refused to make the transformation from gasoline to electro vehicles.
Not really. China is trying to wage economical war with the world.
Chinese EVs are made by workers who live in cages and work 12+ hour days making $500/mo in a country that’s only 80% cheaper than the US. IE $500 is like living off $650/mo in the US if your living expenses were paid (and your home was a cage coffin). You’re basically an indentured servant because you can leave, but you’ll be homeless because you can’t save enough to live in the city.
Second, the CCP subsidize the shit out of EVs. Then sells them across the world.
These two things are designed to destroy the auto industry across the world. The sad thing is most people are to idiotic to realize it. They just go “I wAnT cHeAp EvS duurrr”. Plus, at least domestic Chinese EVs are scary AF, they have an insanely higher rate of thermal runaway. You can have you cheap EV at the cost of helping destroy your domestic economy, just don’t park that shit within 590 feet of my house.
And the ccp cars are garbage/unsafe/rolling spy machines, but if they flood the market they can bankrupt the the auto industry and cause chaos.
But this is capitalism. If German manufacturers can’t compete, they should shut down. Survival of the fittest and free-markets etc etc. there will be job losses but the German people should ask their leaders why that happened
Exactly. They insisted China become capitalist then complain when they do capitalism.
Article doesn’t really point to Chinese vehicles being the primary reason though- it’s that demand is down for cars in Europe.
That said, it’s not really free market capitalist anyway for China to heavily subsidize EV production.
its not that a certain minister of economy has called them out on their wrong course 5 years ago. But he was shut down as fearmongering and pushing a political agenda.
Folks were saying this when Tesla released model S, and did a reasonable job on the timeline. That’s 14 years ago. But those were tree hugging fanatics who don’t understand the importance of short term stock prices.
Who could have seen this comming…corruption catching up… Who could have seen it coming that bribing politicians to allow them producing their product, that the people dont want anymore, wouldnt result in people wanting their product!!? Truely mind boggeling /s
China is not the threat since Germany can always impose tariffs. As the article points out, benefits to workers are too high. Germany must explore other industries besides car manufacturing. This is where it’s important for Germany to encourage immigrants with talent to study and work there. The AfD will exploit the warnings of job collapse to gain power. Hitler rose to power when the democratic Weimar Republic couldn’t control inflation.
Tariffs won’t help because while they’re losing across the board, the most important market for VW, and also the one with the most drastic losses, is not Germany but China. They bet a lot on expansion into China and once reached ~20% market share there, but that has since dropped to half. For BEV specifically it’s abysmal, so the outlook is also bad: BEV has rapidly risen to nearly 60% of the Chinese retail market but VW’s share is in the low single digits.
Germany must explore other industries besides car manufacturing.
This! Our industry is far too dependent on the car market. Car ownership is going down and people don’t need to buy new cars all the time. The market is saturated. When I look around, everybody is driving a relatively new car that won’t have to be replaced for years. It’s just not a growth industry - and by the love of god, it shouldn’t be one.
Euro cars are known to be finicky and when something goes wrong it’s also always a write off unless it’s under warranty.
Have they tried making cars that don’t break after 3-5 years again?
Best I can do is put cameras all over it and track everything that happens inside and out of the car “for your safety”.
I mean, most American models come broken from the factory…
🇯🇵 America is only worth talking about for trucks. Japan, China and sometimes even Korea do normal cars better
That would break them. Building cars that last means less demand for the next new car. Planned obsolescence is the only way to make sure the next round of vehicles has a market, regardless of whether its a significant enough improvement to justify the cost.
Doesn’t sound quite right to me - isn’t Toyota a top brand globally, and doing just fine building cars engineered to last hundreds of thousands of miles? Somehow there’s plenty of market for their cars year after year.
Different business model. Toyota has the Lexus brand, but they rest most of their business model on the shrinking mass market. It works great… when there’s a significant amount of money in the low- to mid-tier markets. Volkswagen group, Mercedes, etc. target upper-mid to luxury/sport markets. Their target market is people with money who want status symbols, not just tools. It has to run flawless, while it runs, but it doesn’t have to run forever because it’s just as much a fashion accessory as it is for transportation; and fashion trends need regular refreshes.
If you target that market with a super-reliable product, you get an Instant Pot. The original models were designed to be damn near bullet proof and last forever. People will take those things to the grave with them, but once everyone who would consider them had one?.. the bottom fell out of the market and they didn’t diversify into other appliances in time to make up for the lost revenue from their primary line of business. Fell into chapter 11 and got snapped up by a bigger fish. The new ones suck so bad… but it keeps people replacing them.
Line go up.
