China’s car exports surpass Germany’s after 54.4 per cent surge to 3.11 million in 2022, narrowing Japan’s lead – China has surpassed Germany to become the world’s second-largest car exporter after mainland exports jumped 54.4 per cent year on year to 3.11 million vehicles in 2022, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
Germany Promises Elon Musk Whatever He Needs For Tesla Berlin Plant – The factory, under construction, would be Tesla’s first European car plant, and could employ an estimated 12,000 people, making as many as 500,000 cars a year. The factory is slated to start production in summer 2021, an aggressive timetable for a car plant…
Locals have complained that trees were cut down for the factory and that it’s being built in a region with scarce water resources, but construction has progressed relatively smoothly so far.
“We are very proud of your car plant in Brandenburg and we wish you good luck with that. You’ll have every assistance you need.”
Could 400,000 car industry jobs in Germany be lost? – The car industry is in apparent decline in Germany. Some estimates predict that half its 800,000 jobs will be gone by 2030. The industry disagrees with that estimate, but the road ahead looks bumpy.
“The production of electric vehicles can be automated more easily. If there is no improvement in the competitive position of the German industry in the area of electromobility in the next few years, and if the need for imports of battery cells and electric vehicles continues to grow in light of the launch of electromobility, employment structures will be severely hit.”
The latest proposal to introduce a general speed limit on German autobahns has not received the needed support from lawmakers.
I’ve never understood this. From time to time the Greens & Co. suggest that Germans reduce their speed on the autobahn. It’s a fine idea, I guess. In theory. But that would be like asking Americans to turn in their guns. It ain’t never going to happen.
Der Vorschlag des Umweltausschusses, die geplante Änderung der Straßenverkehrsordnung um eine Höchstgeschwindigkeit von 130 Kilometern pro Stunde zu ergänzen, fand am Freitag in Berlin wie erwartet keine Mehrheit in der Länderkammer.
That means lowest level. You know, like the current 23-year low in German car production?
German car production fell to its lowest in almost a quarter of a century as Europe’s biggest economy suffers from the fallout of a global trade war.
Automakers including Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Daimler AG produced 4.66 million vehicles in German factories last year, the weakest since 1996. The country’s VDA car lobby, which published the figures on Monday, said the 9% decrease was a result of waning demand from international markets.
The industry is set for more tough times this year. The VDA predicted global car deliveries will drop to 78.9 million vehicles from 80.1 million in 2019.
Madrid, actually. But once she got to Germany nobody offered her a place to sit.
Nobody needed to. She also had a first class ticket. But that’s beside the point or something. I just don’t get it. Doesn’t Greta HERSELF have her own special train or, you know, mobile field headquarters or something along those lines?
Climate activist Greta Thunberg and Germany’s national railway company created a tweetstorm Sunday after she posted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a train surrounded by lots of bags.
The image has drawn plenty of comment online about the performance of German railways.
Wir wünschen #Greta eine gute Heimfahrt. Und arbeiten weiter hart an mehr Zügen, Verbindungen und Sitzplätzen.
And German industry in general. They couldn’t laugh off Tesla. Now the punches are coming in hot and heavy.
Auto
German Industrial Job Losses Top 80,000 With Daimler Cuts – Germany’s economy may have narrowly avoided a recession, but the pressure on the country’s industry shows no sign of abating.
Daimler AG said this week it will shed 10% of management positions at its Mercedes unit, lifting the tally of job cuts announced this year across Germany’s manufacturing sector to more than 80,000, according to Bloomberg calculations.
Companies from Volkswagen AG to Siemens AG are letting workers go as Germany’s powerful automotive industry struggles with a shift toward electrification and self-driving cars, and makers of machinery and robots are hit by slower exports and trade disputes. Makers of well-known German products such as Meissen porcelain and WMF kitchenware are also trimming their workforce.
Right? At least that’s what I’ve been reading in the German media for manyyears now.
But some things you just can’t ignore away. And times change, or something. Looks to me like the German automobile industry just ain’t what she used to be.
Elon Musk’s German Factory Started With Love Letter From Berlin – Musk is taking his fight for the future of transport into the heartland of the combustion engine, where the established players long laughed off Tesla as an upstart on feeble financial footing that couldn’t compete with their rich engineering heritage. But Musk has captured the imagination of the think-different consumer, putting pressure on the Germans to respond.
“We definitely need to move faster than the airport.”
That’s a beauty, isn’t it? Some prefer using the word Tempolimit instead. To save time. Both mean “speed limit,” however. And no, it can’t happen here.
A measure to introduce a 130 km/h (roughly 81 mph) speed limit on the network of motorways that has crisscrossed the country since the ‘30s was introduced by the German Green Party was rejected on Thursday by a majority of Bundestag members. Germany is currently the only country in Europe with stretches of unrestricted motorways, with neighboring countries conforming at the very least to the 130 km/h limit similar to the one proposed.
A golden car was pulled over by police on Sunday as it was “too bright.” Police were concerned that the car would dazzle other drivers in the western German city of Düsseldorf.
A police spokesman said the potentially dangerous “dazzling effect” was why the car had been pulled over.