By P Gosselin on 30. October 2024
After its politically driven foray into electric vehicles, Volkswagen is facing significant financial challenges…plans to close at least three of its German factories…unprecedented move in the company’s history…. tens of thousands of jobs will be lost!
Anti-auto green party activist, liberal arts college-dropout on the supervisory board!
The news for VW is real bad, and now the powerful IG Metall engineering and metal workers’ union is already hinting at strikes to prevent the cuts. Additionally, the company is looking to cut more than $4.3 billion in costs
Hat-tip: Aktienmitkopf.
Misguided foray into electric vehicles
But don’t start feeling sorry for VW. The problems are largely self-made by incompetent managers and politicians.
Firstly, the German state of Lower Saxony, where VW is headquartered in Wolfsburg, owns approximately 20% of Volkswagen. Then, secondly, in the late 2010s, VW began its earnest push into electric vehicle production with the introduction of its ID family of electric cars. The increased focus on electric vehicles was largely politically driven by factors like increasingly stringent emissions standards and overly optimistic future demand for electric vehicles.
EV car sales stall, plant closure
However, VW electric vehicle sales have since taken a turn for the worst. EVs aren’t popular in Germany. Their sales in the first half of 2024 were approximately 317,200 units worldwide, lower than the same period in 2023 (321,600 EVs). The future of EV sales now looks bleak: Volkswagen just announced the closure of its Audi Brussels plant in Belgium, which primarily produces electric vehicles. This decision comes due to lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles and is expected to take effect in February 2025.
Green Party anti-auto activist, college dropout on VW supervisory board!
And if you think VW being owned by a green-leaning state is already problematic for the management of the company, take a look at who sits on the company’s supervisory board: Julia Willie Hamburg, a German politician from Alliance 90/The Greens, Ms. Hamburg also serves as the Deputy Minister-President of Lower Saxony and the State Minister for Education and Culture.
Now let’s look at her qualifications: According to her resume, Ms. Hamburg was educated in Hanover where she studied political science, German philology, and then studied philosophy at the University of Göttingen.
She dropped out of all her studies without a degree. Moreover, she’s an anti-car activist who travels by bicycle. She has neither industrial management experience, financial expertise nor an inkling of automotive engineering. That folks, is one of the top executives at VW. No joke!
So, don’t be surprised if VW gets its clock cleaned by the competition over the next few years.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The German people need to wake up, I can’t believe they have let this go on as long as they have. Their leaders are causing real harm, they need to go.
Sadly, the German people have demonstrated their ability to continue sleepwalking even as the bombs are falling! Whether they can wake up before their national economy implodes seems doubtful as this point!
A nation, once great in the arts and sciences, can be returned to the Dark Ages with the help of a pathological science like Climastrology!
It may well be too late as once companies have committed to relocate they are unlikely to change their minds. The educated workers who have left are probably settled where they are now. If you can’t guarantee to find the workers you need, who will invest in the country as inward investment to Germany has dropped massively. About the only plus is that they still have nuclear power plants that they can refurbish and restart to give cheaper electricity.
J.W. Hamburg’s photo is interesting. She has a gleam in her eye that is the same as a recent hire at my university- named Froggi VanRiper. That is her real name and she is an important person.
Check it out. That look has become common in recent years. Why is that?
“That look has become common in recent years. Why is that?”
Religious Fervour, Cattle Prod, Drugs ???
Ramona (Froggi) VanRiper ( Froggi because of her interest in amphibians )
At least she’s doing something useful, by trying to improve sanitation systems.
Think yourself lucky you got her, …you could have got a Greta !!
I checked VanRiper out. She looks like a relative of Jacinda Ardern. Same politics, also.
The look of social media hypnosis.
She practices in front of a mirror, just like I dare you Greta
Regarding EVs it is good to have a list of DOOM, so when an EV comes to the Pearly Gates “after saving the planet”, but St Peter reads the list, and tells the EV to go to hell and BURN
Affordability, Charging-Infrastructure, & Range-Anxiety Continue To Keep Americans From Embracing EVs
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/affordability-charging-infrastructure-amp-range-anxiety-continue
BY TYLER DURDEN
While the US and the EU look at different ways to add tariffs to China-made electric vehicles to prevent supply disruption, the reality is, overall demand for EVs is starting to peak.
Such was the topic of a new FT report that looked into why Americans aren’t buying more electric vehicles.
“It’s just not accessible to us at this point in our life,” one couple told FT, who said they were looking for a more affordable vehicle.
They went with a $19,000 Honda Accord after a trade-in, since only five new EV models under $40,000 have hit the market in 2024, the report says.
.
A number of factors have decreased buying of EVs, including among environmentally conscious consumers. Various sources, including FT reported about the following issues:
1) high EV prices (increase monthly lease payments),
2) high financing interest rates (increase monthly lease payments),
3) short driving range,
4) lack of charging infrastructure,
5) high insurance cost,
6) high on-the-road charging cost
7) time wasted sitting in vehicle while charging; it takes 5 minutes to fill a gas tank to get about 500 miles of driving, but it take at least 1 to 2 hours to fast-charge a EV battery to get 250 miles of driving
That waste is enormous, if you multiply that time by millions of EVs charged per day.
That waste will make the US worker less productive, further lower his standard of living.
8) high repair and bodyshop cost, and long times for bodyshops to get parts
9) very low resale/trade-in value,
10) low-range during hot and cold weather, especially with a few passengers and some luggage
11) more rapid wear of tires and brakes and expensive replacement cost
12) spending at least “$15000 + labor + hazardous landfill charge” to replace an EV battery in an 8-y-old car
13) worrying about having enough charge, and where to charge, when making a longer trip from A to B
14) worrying about the battery catching fire, while parked in the garage, or on the road
15) inability for an EV to tow almost anything for some distance, without having to recharge along the way
.
Everett Eissenstat, a former senior US Trade Representative told FT: “There is no question, this list of woes is an explanation of the very slow EV adoption in the US and in Europe. We are just not producing EVs consumers need at prices plus other costs, they can afford”. That meager result is after more than 10 years of high subsidies, and Media hype.
Wait until homes with attached garages start burning down at night while the car is being charged. The insurance company will pass their costs onto EV owners with homes with attached garages and charging them inside.
Now that’s what you call a political appointment. But with the Greens on the out, surely there’s no need to keep this Miss on the board..?
She’s there because of her membership of the government of the state of Lower Saxony. The position of the Greens in national opinion polls has nothing to do with it.
It’s not opinion polls, it’s elections – https://apnews.com/article/germany-greens-leaders-resign-government-270a7bd460fdc18574168412ee78f61a#
But your point is taken – a local politician in office is better than one that lost nationally.
Yet another classic case of .. Go WOKE… Go BROKE !!
For a time it seemed they had won the peace. Now it’s all going boobs up.
folks (Volks) was started under a certain Austrian guy with a moustache.
What an irony it’s now dying in a different way.
The modern equivalent philosphy determined to destroy the modern German state was already working in the marxist DDR, hidden poison under it
Merckel enacted this gotterdammerung c/w with a state ideology long hidden but now out for all to see…
Der Wille zur Macht or Triumph des Willens looks all up to date eh?
Under the guise of a 90yrs later German greenie “wonder” model which the whole world likes to copy as per 1930s Germany, are all based on the power of propaganda.
They came up first with Russian gas and oil dependency – all quickly sorted with the Putin-Merckel-Schroeder triumvirate and instead of the first 1933 Autobahn as model….
Well?
They want to show the world NO to NUCLEAR or coal and intermittent electricity as the new Wirtshaftswunder.
The British just as with good old Oswald M who got married in front of the Moustache guy are keen to copy as much of the same as in the 30s.
One wonders if the Sex pistols weren’t somehow right all along?
Now as per 1930-1940 it’s time for Germany to begin to pay the bill, and the result as per usual with propaganda and politics is not looking pretty.
When the proper freeze up comes is it gonna look like 1941, and a frozen out Ukraine to surrender?
a more detailed post over at Eugyppius’ blog (he’s German)
The “VW Executive” is more than just a liberal drop out.
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/in-which-a-leading-green-intellectual
Paraphrasing, with corrections…
Looking like VW wants to DEI ….
Thanks for the tip, Fred Fred!
I recommend everyone read Eugyppius’ post; especially the part regarding Ulrich Herrmann! She comes across as a complete sociopath, hiding in “Green clothing!” If monsters like her are able to steal the US election the doors to freedom and prosperity will slam shut, possibly forever!!
Ulrike! Ulrike! Lord, I HATE SpellWreck!
“…. union is already hinting at strikes to prevent the cuts…”
Oh, gee, that’s gonna help!
If they strike, they are not paid. If they are cut, they are not paid.
Seems an equalizing equality.
A new meaning to ‘Equal Opportunity’ from nutcases like this Herrmann. They are coming out of the woodwork all over the World.
“But it’s got electrolytes!”
Ironically, gas-powered Audis (a VW brand) seem to have supplanted BMWs here as the vehicle of choice for posh progressives who want to drive aggressively.
In Brussels they make 1 model: The Audi Q8 e-tron.
It retails at €90.000. Maybe, just maybe not many can afford such a car?
Even with all the money in the world I could not commit that much money on a car, accounting how much I would use it.
Audi Brussels received the past 6 years 158 million euro in subsidies. Lol China subsidizing. If you divide that by the workforce you can say that workers were free, paid by the government. How can you not be competitive when employees are free?
I feel sorry for the workers that they are victims of incompetent politicians and managers.
It retails at 90,000 Euros AND provides far less utility than a gas powered model.
What’s not to like?/sarc
There should be little surprise that overpriced and inferior vehicles don’t sell.
Politicians think that the public is dumber than they are.
Unfortunately it is seemingly becoming more and more clear that the public is dumber than the politicians.
“The problems are largely self-made by incompetent managers and politicians.”
Reads far more like weak-kneed and spineless decision-makers.
Going on strike to save jobs at a company losing money hand over fist? Sounds like a good idea. Is the union leader one Hans Lemming by any chance?
There is a story about an arab who took refuge from a sandstorm in his tent. The camel was left outside. Soon, the camel’s nose appeared under the edge of the tent. Later, the camel was in the tent and the arab was out in the sandstorm. VW appears to have a camel.
Are you sure that’s not a Kamala?
Meanwhile, in Missouri. Saving the planet by converting lithium stew to poisonous gases.
R A W S A L E R T S on X: “🚨#WATCH: As a major fire breaks out at a recycling Lithium Battery plant triggering massive explosions leading to mandatory evacuations 📌#Fredericktown | #Missouri Watch as numerous fire departments rush to the scene of a major fire at a lithium battery recycling plant in https://t.co/rLZIV11zCy” / X
The good news is someone is trying to recycle those batteries and recover the critical and expensive materials.
The bad news is the risk of inferno is as great, perhaps greater than the original battery.
I assume that any factory in Lower Saxony will be the last to go, provided of course that it can get all of the Chinese controlled materials needs for their foray into EV and other follies.
It can’t be long now before one of the Green globalists comes out with the inevitable line.
They will claim it is right for VW to shut down factories because the company was founded by a fascist and has been polluting the world with its products since Adolf instigated its birth.
The Green bicycle riding board member and political high achiever in Lower Saxony, must be so thrilled to be at the cutting edge of economic destruction of such a negative business.
She has no doubt been inspired by our own Ed Miliband here in the UK he knows nothing about engineering just like her he was a complete political study just like her and he has been given an open cheque (check) book by the Labour administration to destroy the last remnants of UK industry, just like Ms Hamburg at VW.
I feel bad for the workers who now much join the ever growing soup line.
It will get worse as more agricultural land is repurposed for alternate energy.
And one can envision not getting hot soup in the future.
Go read The Population Bomb and try to convince me this is not part of the plan.
Stupid typos… first line much s/b must
German state of Lower Saxony … owns approximately 20%
Isn’t there a word for that?
Short VW stock and populate the board with green political activists. Already been done looks like.
Gorbachev’s revenge. Until the wall came down all the socialists were safely imprisoned.
Once free; their soviet style brainwashing proved contagious and infected academia in the west, which spread to politics and the Civil service and now the Press and industry.
A point not previously considered. The wall came down and the socialist were loosed on the world.
So
Mercedes announces a 54% drop in profits in the period July to September due to slowing EV sales and falling sales (13%) in China
VW says profits have fallen almost 60%, is looking into closing 3 plants in Germany because of “industry wide buyer reluctance” to go down the EV route and also said sales in China fell 12%
Aston Martin has lost over £229m in 2024 and has debts of £1.2bn
Meanwhile Ford is making massive losses on EVs in the US.
Looks like the EV revolution is coming along fine 🙂
You will have nothing but you will be happy.
I had the good fortune a couple of weeks ago to chat with a young academic from one of Germany’s Greenest universities. Without any leading comment from me, he said “to get funding you used to have to propose “climate change”; now it’s “AI”.”
Back in 1973 I (accidentally) ended up in a creek during a tropical storm in Texas.
The old VW Bug really did float. (When I say “old”, I mean old. This one didn’t have a gas gauge. It had a small reserve gas tank instead.)
I wonder how long an new EV VW would float?
To repeat a portion of my comment about Ford Motor Company losses on EVs made on a similar article recently posted on WUWT (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/29/ford-lost-another-1-2-billion-in-3q-on-evs/#comment-3987302 ):
One would think Volkswagen could have afforded better market analysts and accountants . . . but there you have it! In VW’s case, I have to extend the guilty parties to include their “supervisory” board and one Julia Willie Hamburg.
Is it possible they’re using the admittedly bad ev policy excuse to hide losses from other problems? The same “other issues” that inspired Brexit exist in the countries still “in”.
One should always do an analysis of alternatives.
In this case, your what if is plausible as similar has happened throughout history.
However, it seems unlikely in this case.
Never delegate to (fill in the blank) what is simply due to stupidity.