Frankfurt (Germany) (AFP) – After decades of making bumper profits in China, Germany’s carmakers have run out of road and sales have slumped dramatically, forcing painful job losses at home.
Volkswagen’s woes in China pushed Europe’s largest carmaker to a 5.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) loss for the three months to end-September.
The 10-brand group’s declining fortunes in the world’s largest car market are the main reason behind a historic restructuring drive that could see it shed up to 120,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
BMW and Mercedes-Benz are also cutting jobs, and all three have issued profit warnings this year.
“Nobody was prepared for the swiftness or the violence of the pivot,” Tu Le of Sino Auto Insights told AFP. “The fall for the German automakers has been really abrupt.”
The big three German carmakers’ annual vehicle deliveries in China fell about a third between 2019 and 2025 to 3.87 million, according to AFP calculations based on company disclosures.
Chinese carmakers’ shares of their domestic market meanwhile rose to 65.3 from 37.8 percent, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
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Time to move to public transit.
Who would have thought, that denying electric motors for a decade after the competition started investing in it, lobbying the government against electrification and ignoring your customers’s wishes, would be a bad idea?
Any fucking idiot should’ve seen this coming. VW said just a few years ago, that they didn’t care about electric cars, and that people only wanted ICE vehicles, completely ignoring all the people desperately waiting for good electric cars.
You know what people need? Heated seat subscription /s
It’s what the peasants want!
Except BMW has been going EVS for a bit. They have the know how but competing with state sponsored Chinese EVS also makes that harder.
They also have heated seat subscriptions, exactly what most EV drivers want.
The low-cost Volkswagen ID.Every1, slated for European launch in 2027, will meanwhile have an electric motor made in China. “You can see us also as a Chinese player”, Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume said in July. “We can do the same as the Chinese can do.”
hahha some pivot. ‘so we lost our core technoology and main reason for existence, we’ll just use their motors! see, we’re the same!’
Kick the can down the road for another year though vw
!fuckcars@lemmy.world sees this as an absolute win
Sucks to suck
You first hit it on reverse until it starts clicking. Then just drive to work.
