If carmakers were late to the electric game, Volkswagen, which has almost 300,000 employees in Germany, is scrambling to make up for lost time
The government wants 14m electric vehicles on German roads by 2030, up from 1m today. But the slow death of the internal combustion engine undercuts the business model of gearbox, cooling-system or fuel-injection pump makers—suppliers that dot Saarland and other states. Almost 20,000 people work in Saarland’s car industry, mostly in small and medium-sized firms. The state has neither a large company headquarters nor a big city with a thriving service sector.
Germany’s industrial model rests on the full employment that buys consensus between firms, workers and government. Labour relations are harmonious. But the impulses to create what unions call a “just” transition can lead to ruinously expensive deals like the “coal exit” agreed in 2019: a €40bn programme to manage the slow elimination by 2038 of the final coal mines, which employ 20,000 people, slightly fewer than the country’s yoga teachers.
The transition is also a challenge to big companies. . Under its charismatic boss, Herbert Diess, and with an eye on Tesla, soon to open a battery gigafactory outside Berlin,s will account for half its vehicle sales by 2030. By 2035 vw, which reckons to account for 2% of global carbon emissions, will cease selling petrol-powered cars in Europe.insiders and you see how deep the shift has gone.
The car industry faces the biggest disruption in its history, says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, head of the Centre Automotive Research in Duisburg. Electrification is just a start. Audi, abrand, is trying a car-subscription model aimed at younger drivers, a growing market that could upend revenue models. Software systems require digital skills and fresh ways of working.
As for the jobs, the scares are overblown, insists Mr Diess . “Seats remain seats, steel remains steel, wheels remain wheels, brakes remain brakes,” he recently told the German Press Agency. A study by the Boston Consulting Group and the German think-tank Agora Verkehrswende projects no net loss of jobs by 2030, although other surveys are less sanguine. But the headline figure conceals massive churn, as component making gives way to battery production and coding. Almost half the country’s 1.
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