Yes! That Qatar Investment Authority that had some losses with CS .
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An interesting and informed documentary on the self-inflicted fall of legacy auto:
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The Chinese business of German automakers could literally disappear over the next couple of years.
If that happens, they’re cooked.
Also, the US business could be impacted by tariffs. Significantly.
The European business is negligible in comparison.
10% EUR devaluation will take care of it. Overdue anyway.
Nah, everything will become even more expensive and that doesn´t work for me.
Very interesting, thanks. Somehow this reminds me of Boeing.
That aside, US EVs need tailfins!
That’s a bit dramatic. The sales numbers of hybrids are booming. Everyone disregarded the hybrids from Toyota, but they sell very well.
The European car industry will loose hundreds of thousands of jobs in the next 10 years if it follows the trajectory of other industries that moved to the low cost East Asian countries.
Besides, that will be just one of many industries which face the same basic economic environment of high costs, high taxes and social contributions and red tape.
One has just to realize that in 2008 Eurozone and US GDP were about euro 13 trillion. In 2021 the Eurozone’s was $15 trillion while US GDP was $26 trillion.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/09/04/the-gdp-gap-between-europe-and-the-united-states-is-now-80_6123491_23.html
Devaluation will also make imports more expensive.
Devaluation mostly works when you don’t have to import a lot of raw materials and energy.
I did not mean intentional devaluation. I think the Euro will weaken against the dollar anyway, mostly because of a large gap in interest rates.
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It’s not just about VW missing the EV boat, German industrial Know-how/culture is not conducive to the modern era where you need to pivot fast…Many sectors are struggling badly, yes also the love in with cheap Russian oil /gas is hurting…
That is not what is hurting. it´s the lack of it that is kicking our collective Teutonic asses.
I‘m reading the German translation of F William Engdahl‘s „A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order“.
It’s fascinating and frightening how Germany seems to repeat similar mistakes made by England in the late 19th century that eventually led to its downfall.
I read this tidbit from an interview:
The house view in the European Commission has been Americanised in a weird kind of way, and the Biden administration helped to do that. They promoted the commission to the presidency of Europe, quite deliberately. Many of them were veterans of the Obama period, where they were trying to manage the euro-zone crisis with Germany, and it was a total nightmare for them.
They made a quite strategic choice to promote [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen into the prominent role that she’s come to occupy. She’s the point of contact, so they’ve now got an answer to the question of, “who do you call when you want to speak to … Europe?” It’s von der Leyen.
The von der Leyen people reciprocated by getting on board with this geopolitical agenda set by the US. And I agree, the tone in Germany is very different, but we’re just at the beginning of this happening. When the EV train really begins to roll, when the really major shock, the Volkswagen crisis, which is just beginning now, unfolds over the next coming years, that is - whether the Europeans recognise it or not - a China crisis. Because whether it’s visible in Europe or not, VW’s, Mercedes’ and BMW’s business models depend on large China markets, and those are under huge threat.
So there is an indirect reverberation from their losses of market share in China itself, and the next phase after that will be the entry of large numbers of really competitive Chinese entrants in Europe.
Oil gas is sourced but at a premium and German industry was driven at a price point now that price point has hiked they are no longer competitive allied by closing on Nuclear plants they left themselves in a right mess…
Yawn.
10 posts were split to a new topic: Lithium mining in Serbia and Serbian politics in general
@mods, the criminal case of a car hitting a girl in Belgrade and its relevance to the VW plant closure is really stretching the butterfly effect theory. We have quite a few threads littered with offtopic rubbish by the usual 2-3 suspects.
I’m out at the moment but I was planning on tidying up this thread and the afd one when I get home.
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