• philpo@feddit.org
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      13 days ago

      No. They deal with the fact that they didn’t start the technological race until it was too late (and haven’t fully committed themselves even nowadays) and that they strongly build their sale strategy on the Chinese market - which nowadays is basically an EV market and one where German cars are now seen as either preposterous or “Grandfathers car”.

      This comes together with a price hike (not only on EVs but also across their fleet - starting long before EVs were common and affecting the combustion fleet as well; see the price of the Golf or Passat compared to an average worker wage over the last 20 years + it’s resale value), a major lack of quality control since COVID and a lack of financial planning for this upcoming storm.

      In other words: Their problem was not the end of the subsidies (which basically only affected the ID3 anyway as neither VW nor BMW or MB had any other models below the maximum price threshold for the subsidy) but their lack of management flexibility in time with a rapidly changing market.