The resurrection of the German car industry

Are BMW et al. about to prove the doubters wrong?

Photo by JUICE on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

The Internationale Automobil Ausstellung (IAA), one of the world’s largest auto shows, began in Munich this week amid a funereal mood surrounding the German car industry.

US tariffs, state-funded competition from China, and design flaws in the first generation of German-built EVs are making life hard in global markets. At home, high energy prices, sluggish demand, and strict EU fines on companies that sell too many combustion engines add further pressure.

Job losses in the industry, the backbone of German wealth for most of the post-war period, reached over 50,000 last year alone. Tens of thousands more are predicted by the end of the decade. With their share of world markets shrinking by a fifth over the past ten years, Germany’s big brands have all reported falling profits. Porsche even suffered the ignominy of being booted out of the DAX, Germany’s index of most valuable publicly traded companies.

With the patient seemingly in terminal decline, Ge…