VW is going down. The market is way too competitive, and they can't keep up. Imposing sanctions on China is the only way for them to get back on their feet.
Despite the hype, EV adoption in Europe is still slow, not sure if there is a market segment for this kind of car when the charging network is not ready to support it.
- most people are Luddite, despite all the claim most do not want any revolution, they do fear any change;
- due to managerism the EU automotive, once the first and the best in the wold, is pure finance since decades, so completely lack substantial R&D, as a result we can't compete with China who actually what we have done in the past, when the automotive was the whole-industries driver.
China do a kind of public R&D, oh yes, not really a "free" one, but at least they have standards and public coordination, here in the whole west anyone go private and as a result innovation wane and capability to substantially evolve essentially disappear.
A BEV today, seeing it's useful expected life and performances should have price tags between city-centric toys sub 10.000€, entry-level real car with at least 400km WLTP/250 miles EPA range around 20.000€, mid-level cars, larger, with more accessories etc at 30.000€ range and so on. Actually our EU EVs are Chinese anyway and priced around 20.000€ too much to be acceptable.
Aside photovoltaic is pushed in bad directions for large corporate interests instead of the sole sensible direction witch is pure self-consumption to lower grid peak usage for the grid and spare money for the owner. In that sense we are even terribly behind in mere tech terms: we have stationary storage that are typically LFP 400V the very same of most cars, but there is NO DAMN charging station DC-to-DC from p.v. to the car to avoid wasting much in a double conversion. There is NO V2H solution and only few cars are capable of limited V2L around 3kW maximum. There are almost NO appliance easy to integrate with a self-consumption model on sale, no appliance offer a DC-DC direct power even for those internally actually use DC like aircon, heat-pump water heater and so on.
Unfortunately our economic ruling class want the green new deal to push most to poverty to enslave better, well, most are ignorant but not so ignorant nor stupid enough to understand at least something, so the green deal happen badly and late killing us. That's is. OR we made it PUBLIC for the PUBLIC interest or we will loose ALL, ruling class included, they simply want too much so they'll loose anyway.
Does anyone still believe the german carmakers will be able to turn the tide?
As someone living in central europe the decay of this industry will be absolutely brutal to watch and experience. So many stem jobs around here are tied to the success of VW/Mercedes/BMW and they keep messing it up.
Europe is in the same position as China - they have to import all their fossil fuels, so you'd think this would be a primary driver towards the adoption of non-fossil-fuel energy systems. Granted this is a hard job, but why has China done such a better job of it than Europe has?
I'm guessing kickbacks explain it - the heads of the European political system have been getting payoffs from the Middle East and USA and Russian fossil fuel providers so that they don't do what the Chinese have done, high-speed electrified rail and monocrystalline silicon ingot production.
I'd have assumed that faced with being stuck between USA/Russia/MiddleEast/Africa suppliers of fossil fuels for their basic energy needs, Europe would have gone 100% into renewables... but not if the EU heads are earning a percentage on those sales right?
I really think this explains why China, not the EU, has gained world leader status on non-fossil energy production.
The auto industry is full of people getting a cut of the automotive dollar. EVs threaten that. By switching to EVs, you cut out the oil industry and most of the auto parts industry. States lose gas tax revenue, and automotive and oil jobs shrink. Most importantly, dividends to shareholders shrink.
EVs will become more accepted if and only if we can increase the number of rent-seeking points where the finance industry can convert the EV dollar into stock dividends. Once that happens, magically, all the EV objections will go away.
...electric vehicles still have parts. Only 10% of a car is its powerplant. Steering, braking, holding humans, and keeping them comfy and safe, are not going anywhere. They also introduce new and very dangerous parts that demand a high dollar and specialized maintenance.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/business/volkswagen-brand-no-...