alt Hacker NewsA very key problem is the common narrative that green policies and the EU allegedly caused the downfall of the car industry (-> "Verbrennerverbot").
In reality, a way bigger impact seems to be that the Chinese govt stopped buying German cars once they could build their own (which they have been always transparent about).
Unfortunately, this misdiagnosis leads to the wrong conclusion to double-down on a obsolete business model of the car industry, instead of diversifying away from it.
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What would the appropriate strategy have been after realizing China had decided to squeeze foreign cars out of the market? The "obsolete business model" still sells many cars world-wide.
How large a demand for cars does the Chinese government have do you think?
It's both. Of course the massively shrinking share of the Chinese market is a big chunk of the problem. But the whole mindset here in Germany is completely delusional with the idea to be leaders in environmental technology and sustainability solutions.
My favorite example of this delusion is Porsche who somehow thought that selling their bread-and-butter model Macan exclusively as an EV was a good idea. I still cannot understand how they arrived at this decision.
This. China is a much larger economy and by far the single largest car market in the world - selling more vehicles domestically than the EU and USA combined.
That being said just like Germany they're largely export-oriented and if local demand ever weakens, they'll struggle all the same.