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Production of BMW bodies in Shenyang, China
Photo: Pan Yulong / dpa
The future of the auto industry is electric, gasoline and diesel engines are being phased out.
The only question is how long the farewell to the combustion engine must - or may - take.
After Audi announced last week that it would only give burning for about five years, BMW will continue to rely on the previous drive technology for even longer.
»The real decision-makers in our industry are the customers.
And you should never lose sight of them, ”CEO Oliver Zipse defended his group's strategy in an interview with the“ Passauer Neue Presse ”and the“ Donaukurier ”.
Is half the market volume at risk?
Zipse referred to BMW's plans to sell half of the cars with purely battery-electric drives in 2030. "If a manufacturer no longer has a combustion engine offering, then half the market volume will be lost and the company is on a downward path." In the next 15 years there will be cities, regions and countries in which the process of transformation to electromobility is taking place complete. But that will not be the case in the sum of 140 BMW markets around the world.
The Volkswagen subsidiary Audi, on the other hand, wants to bring the last combustion engine onto the market in the middle of the decade. From 2032 or 2033, the Ingolstadt-based company will only sell vehicles with electric drives worldwide. In contrast, Daimler has decided for its Mercedes-Benz brand that the entire new vehicle fleet should be CO₂-neutral by 2039. CEO Ola Källenius has indicated, however, that the company could set itself more ambitious goals and wants to give a strategy update this year, as he told the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" and the "Stuttgarter Nachrichten".
The pressure for structural change could possibly increase in the future.
The Greens are calling for a ban on combustion engines by 2030. The climate-friendly restructuring of the automotive industry and the associated structural change are threatening numerous classic industrial locations in Germany.
According to IG Metall, in parts of Saarland, Thuringia and South Westphalia, the question of prospects for employees arises for the automotive industry and its supplier industry.
The changeover is seen as a major challenge, especially for the medium-sized supplier industry.
apr / dpa