The year 2019 ends with a bang for the car industry: The Opel parent company PSA and Fiat Chrysler have decided to merge. This creates a conglomerate that includes brands such as Peugeot, Citroën, Maserati, Jeep and Dodge. With a total of 8.7 million vehicles sold, the new group becomes the fourth largest manufacturer behind Toyota, Volkswagen and the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi association.
The mega deal shows how strong the industry is currently changing. Car manufacturers such as Fiat Chrysler are barely survivable on their own because they cannot spend the billions necessary to develop alternative drives, autonomous cars and digital networking alone. In any case, that is only worthwhile if the new technologies can then be installed in millions of vehicles. Even the Volkswagen Group, which sells between ten and eleven million cars a year, needs partners to share investments and risks and thus generate the necessary returns. The Wolfsburg-based company has been working closely with the US company Ford in the fields of electromobility and robot cars since this year.
The pressure on the automotive industry will increase significantly next year. Then the EU's stricter CO2 fleet targets will apply. The cars that are sold in Europe may then emit on average no more than 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Premium manufacturers such as Daimler and BMW are still a long way from this. In the future, you will have no choice but to sell electric and hybrid cars on a large scale. According to industry estimates, if the car companies in Europe simply went on as before, they would have to pay a total fine of around 30 billion euros.
E-car offensive despite uncertain prospects
The companies are therefore launching large e-car offensives next year, although no one can say exactly how big the demand for the Stromer is. Car managers speak plainly: At the moment, hardly anyone in Germany wants to buy an electric car - the extremely incomplete charging infrastructure should be one of the most important reasons. The groups have recently set up more than 170 charging stations on main traffic axes around motorways. But the supply, especially in the city centers, is still far too small from their point of view: Without massive political intervention, electromobility will not prevail in Germany.
In fact, the demand for electric cars fluctuates depending on the amount of government funding. This was recently shown by an investigation by the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) in Bergisch Gladbach. While e-car sales in Germany grew strongly this year, they were already declining in the largest markets, China and the USA. In China, for example, government funding has recently been greatly reduced. In Germany, on the other hand, according to the decision of the federal government, higher purchase premiums of up to 6000 euros will apply in future. That should have an impact on sales figures - at least in the short term.
Regardless of whether e-mobility is a long-term success or not: technological change is already causing tremendous distortions in the automotive industry. In addition, the auto industry weakened considerably in 2019, even in the continuous growth market of China, with little improvement in sight in 2020.
Jobs threatened
So far, this has mainly affected suppliers, whose technology is less and less in demand for conventional cars with internal combustion engines. The Gusswerke Saarbrücken, Eisenmann and Weber Automotive have already filed for bankruptcy this summer. The large suppliers Bosch and Continental want to cut jobs on a large scale, but are in a better position because, in addition to old diesel and gasoline drive technology, they also master many increasingly popular future topics such as sensors and electric drives.
The chances of German car groups such as BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen to master the difficult year 2020 are also comparatively good. They are financially and technologically strong enough to survive a dry spell. However, they too have to cut staff in order to prepare for an impending crisis.
In addition, new plants and jobs are no longer created in Germany, but in large sales markets such as the USA or China, which increasingly demand local production from foreign manufacturers. This is not good news for Germany.
According to a study by the CAR Center Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, car production in Germany will fall to a 22-year low in 2019. The automotive location is becoming less and less important, says director Ferdinand Dudenhöffer. In 1998, almost twelve percent of the cars produced worldwide came from Germany, in 2019 it was less than six percent. Falling trend.
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