Exclusive - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz China trip from 24-27 will see him "accompanied by largest business delegation since Angela Merkel’s first term in office in the late 2000s"
Merz will be joined by a 30-strong business delegation, compared to 12 for Scholz trip.
Germany's issue is that their main export (Cars) basically became worthless overnight.
This is not going to reverse itself. Unlike in other countries, EVs and EV infrastructure are now firmly entrenched in China, you cannot go back like the US is doing (and Europe is slowing).
(Good) EVs are simply built differently. The result is that all the German automotive parts, not just cars, are worthless to the Chinese market.
Transmissions, Engines, control units, etc. All uneeded...
Volkswagen has raised the white flag already, the German engineered MEB platform is simply inferior to the XPeng platform they licensed.
MEB is trash. Too heavy, too expensive. Audi Q4 retails for ~$50K in US, sells for 30K in China. Doesn't use Gigacastings to reduce weight/reduce manufacturing cost, not enough space for batteries to increase range, outdated electronics/software interface (no true OTA updates), slow 400V charging. MEB is to be replaced in 2029.
Too late, most Chinese manufacturers are already using most of these technologies already.
What are the German companies ideas to reverse this trend?
