Comment by nradov
4 days ago
Right, but why don't the Germans respond? I understand that they have some structural cost disadvantages but they seem to have been caught by surprise and just gave up.
4 days ago
Right, but why don't the Germans respond? I understand that they have some structural cost disadvantages but they seem to have been caught by surprise and just gave up.
I think what happened is Merc and VW wanted to sell into China. Part of the deal was they had to build factories in China and allow Chinese imports the other direction. It was very profitable for a while but is now causing issues.
That impacts market share but it doesn't explain why the Germans keep building shitty cars. Why are they so lazy and incompetent? Blocking Chinese imports wouldn't fix that fundamental problem.
Their problems are created by the government mostly, so they can't do anything about them.
• Expensive energy (German government believes there is a climate crisis)
• Expensive labour (German government believes in prioritizing workers over companies)
• Expensive regulations (you get the picture)
They can't solve any of these problems because they are left wing imperatives, and the left would rather the German car industry die than give up on any of them. So all they can do is wait for the end, and/or hope the AfD somehow obtain a majority.
Just for your information, the AfD doesn't want to have cheap energy either. Nobody in Germany does, and that's the problem.
While the AfD wants to keep German lignite (half as cheap as any imported gas), it also wants gas. The point of coal is eliminating gas. Otherwise you're just polluting for no gain.
The point of coal is to make electricity and making sure it's cheap means using every resource you have. So I don't quite see how supporting the reopening of coal plants is not the AfD supporting cheap energy.
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Volkswagen could’ve bought Tesla for the cost of the dieselgate fines, at the time of fining
Fair enough, but the German government doesn't force them to design shitty cars. That's 100% a management choice.
It forces them to do lots of things that lead to that outcome, for example it is hard to fire people.