Germany’s Auto Industry, EVs, and Climate Change Action

“Running On Empty—Will Germany’s Car Industry Survive?” is a fascinating documentary produced by DW Documentary and narrated by Torben Schmidt. It takes a deep look at Germany’s car industry and the challenges it is facing in a new era that sees the rapid emergence of electric cars. 

The documentary investigates Germany’s combustion and diesel technology and whether the industry will survive in the age of rapid electric car production or is nearing its demise.

The DW Documentary (2019) discusses Germany’s success in combustion and diesel engines as a result of more than a hundred years of work and its proud automobile culture. The documentary also shows how Norway is already producing fossil fuels and plans to be fully electric in six years.

It then features China, with its giant market, starting to create electric cars for its people. With a market as big as China, Schmidt says Germany can have a big chunk of the market if it transitions to electric cars.

Schmidt narrates how Norway, a country that has become rich in oil, will ban fossil-fueled cars in six years’ time. He says that 65 per cent of new cars sold in Norway are electric or hybrids, compared to Germany’s 7 per cent. Schmidt says this happened because of political will.

Norway sees climate protection as an opportunity and not a threat to its economy. It is a leader in electric car infrastructure in Europe and even the world, providing cheaper public parking and using bus lanes for electric cars.

Charging stations and parking garages are standard. Schmidt says electric cars are cheaper in Norway because the country is exempt from taxes on fossil-fuelled cars.

In the documentary, Shmidt interviews people from the electric car industry, auto industry experts, and former German auto industry executives.

Why is Germany slow to transition to making electric cars?

The documentary claims that some 800 thousand jobs are directly dependent on the auto industry plus many more indirectly dependent and with an annual turnover of over 400 billion euros, are reasons why German politicians have worked hard to avert any threats and protect the auto industry from sudden disruptive change.

Schmidt interviews Karl-Thomas Neumann, a former Opel CEO who is now living in the U.S. to launch his new start-up. According to Neumann, it is hard to give up the success of German combustion technology. He says a new mindset is needed to start something new, referring to electric car production. He added that lawmakers must develop a framework and work with the car industry to make it happen.

Neumann says, “Jobs will be lost, but new ones will be created, and electric vehicles will give rise to new business opportunities. But where is this being discussed in Germany or even in Europe? Maybe we Germans simply cannot part with our gas guzzlers yet because they’re our invention and so slick.”

Prof Uwe Canter explains why Germany is slow to transition to electric cars. “The danger is once you’ve made it to the top and there is a reversal…you get the so-called lock-in effect..in the case of the auto industry, we are now at the top of our game in fossil-fuelled cars, no one comes close. Stepping out of that comfort zone with other types of engines is associated with very high costs…and that’s called lock-in”.

Germany’s Junior Transport Minister, Stefan Belga, says that “we’ve always backed ambitious climate targets…at the European level with our automotive. In my view, we should decide in 2019 what transport will look like from 2025 to 2050. A lot can develop in the coming years. When the car industry does well, Germany does well.”

Questions for reflection

What do you think? Should Germans ditch their combustion and diesel engine technology in favour of electric cars to support climate change actions?

And with the new era of electric vehicles, will there be more demands for oil and fossil-fuelled cars in the future?

Watch this interesting documentary and consider whether it is in Germany’s best interest to switch to electric car production.

BACKGROUND PHOTO CREDIT: Volkswagen’s Gläserne Manufaktur in Dresden By Rainerhaufe – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link. The image has been cropped to fit the website’s size requirement.