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BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler in front of the IAA auto show: who is the greenest in the whole country?

2021-09-01T13:18:20.641Z


At the IAA, the car companies want to present themselves in a more environmentally friendly way than ever. In the future, half of BMW will be made of recycled material. Nevertheless, massive protests threaten.


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BMW electric car i4, CEO Zipse: "Only the CO2 actually emitted is relevant for climate protection"

Photo: Sepp Spiegl / imago images / sepp spiegl

BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen are actually doing well. Many people are buying cars again to avoid overcrowded trains and buses, or to take them on vacation. The pandemic has given individual mobility, which has already been seen by many as an obsolete model, to an unexpected upswing. In the first half of the year, the corporations again wrote profits that were higher than in 2019, the previous year of the corona crisis. And yet: A real party atmosphere does not want to arise in the days before the start of the IAA auto show in Munich (September 7th to 12th).

Because despite the recent recovery, the industry is still facing enormous challenges. The acute shortage of computer chips is forcing manufacturers to stop the production line and send employees on short-time work. Added to this is the pressure from the European Union to further accelerate the transition to e-mobility. If the Brussels politicians have their way, no more cars with internal combustion engines will be sold from 2035 onwards.

The corporations have long since reacted and started e-offensives worth billions. Even a burnout is no longer a taboo for them. Audi, for example, has announced that it will no longer produce gasoline or diesel vehicles from 2032. Nevertheless, shortly before the IAA, Audi boss Markus Duesmann warns of the dramatic consequences of the change, especially for smaller manufacturers: "Not everyone will make the change successfully." In his view, some car manufacturers and suppliers are still too attached to the internal combustion engine. In fact, the corporations want to sell gasoline and diesel vehicles for many years to come, especially in other regions of the world with less strict CO2 requirements.

At the same time, a real race for the greenest car has begun in the industry.

Because no matter how many billions the corporations still earn with their combustion engines: More and more politicians, investors and customers are demanding a larger range of e-cars.

And so BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen will again be introducing a whole range of new electric vehicles.

BMW wants to present the i4 e-sedan, Volkswagen the ID.5 SUV coupe, and Daimler its electric E-Class EQE.

BMW wants to build the recycling car

However, it is no longer just the electric drive that counts.

Critical buyers also want to know where the materials for the vehicle and batteries come from.

How environmentally friendly electric cars actually are is likely to be one of the main discussion topics at the trade fair forums in downtown Munich.

With the next generation of models, BMW wants to significantly reduce the CO2 footprint of its vehicles - and not just by switching from combustion to electric motors.

For the first time, the board has set specific goals for the use of so-called secondary materials.

So far, BMW cars contain less than 30 percent recycled materials on average.

According to information from SPIEGEL from corporate circles, this quota is to be increased to at least 50 percent in the long term across all model series.

In order to achieve this goal, BMW intends to work with the chemical company BASF and the recycling specialist Alba in the future.

It is primarily about plastics for which a circulatory system is to be established in the long term.

When presenting the results for the first half of the year, BMW boss Oliver Zipse had already criticized the fact that the discussion about CO2 emissions was too focused on the drive and the emissions it caused during the use phase of the car. The climate “doesn't care” whether a manufacturer pursues a battery-electric or a technology-neutral strategy. "Only the CO2 actually emitted is relevant for climate protection - in total: from the raw materials and materials used, through the industrial manufacturing process, the active use of a vehicle, right through to the recycling of raw materials."

Today the usage phase of the car - in other words, especially the exhaust emissions - accounts for around 70 percent of the total CO2 balance of the BMW Group.

This proportion falls the more e-cars are sold, especially if they are powered by green electricity.

This shifts the CO2 problem more and more to the supply chain and resource extraction.

Secondary materials are significantly less CO2-intensive in production.

However, the construction of the vehicles has to be different if the recycling rate is to increase.

The raw materials used must be of higher quality.

Instead of using adhesives, you often have to work with plug-in connections in order to protect the materials.

BMW wants to take a significant step forward in recycling with the “New Class”, as the group calls the generation of models that will be launched on the market from 2025 onwards. The cars of this generation will not be recycled until 2040 on average, but the prerequisites for this will have to be created in development over the next three years. BMW does not currently want to commit to an exact date for reaching the 50 percent quota.

Environmental activists criticize such promises as greenwashing.

Action alliances such as "Sand in the Gears" have already announced protests.

Several thousand participants are expected at a camp on the Theresienwiese.

For many activists, the corporations' electric offensives are nowhere near enough.

They are calling for a »stop to destructive car production« and pointing out that the corporations are selling other, preferably heavy, SUVs that consume a lot of electricity and material.

The nervousness in the auto industry is already great.

Some of the activists' demands may be excessive and not in line with the majority opinion of the population.

And yet they carry the risk for the auto industry of damaging the new, painstakingly built green image of the auto industry.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-09-01

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