Top topic: The year of the electric car flops
The hype surrounding
Tesla
, the market value of which has now surged to more than $ 1.2 trillion this year, hides a little what is otherwise going on. One IPO followed the next in 2021; and most newcomers took the express route through a construct called Spac. Electric car and air taxi manufacturers were particularly popular. The race for the future of the global mobility market has shifted to Wall Street this year. For investors, however, almost all stocks turned out to be a disaster. With the exception of
Lucid
(plus 280 percent), almost all of them end the year in deep red. We took a closer look at the Spac data - and present: The biggest flops of the year.
Heads: Andreas Friedrich ++ Carolin Strauss ++ Stephen Fitzpatrick ++ Oliver Zipse
Andreas Friedrich
(57) is to
coordinate
Daimler’s
battery
cell offensive
from January 1st
, including various collaborations for new gigafactories.
In future, a lot will depend on the master of ceremonies of the cell in Stuttgart.
Carolin Strauss
(36) will take over the position of Head of Strategy at Daimler - also for the New Year.
Stephen Fitzpatrick
(44), British entrepreneur and ex-Formula 1 racing team owner, went public with his flying taxi company
Vertical Aerospace
.
Per Spac, of course.
Current goodwill: $ 1.9 billion.
Oliver Zipse
(57),
BMW
boss and recognizable only occasional actor, appears somewhat covertly in the company's Christmas video.
In the main role: Oscar winner
Christoph Waltz
, whom Zipse won for a long-term marketing cooperation.
And
supercar blondie
.
Company: Lufthansa ++ Volkswagen ++ Tesla ++ GM ++ Canoo
Admission to the
Lufthansa
pilot school was the start of a golden career for a long time. From the school desk it went straight to the cockpit. Then Corona came, CEO
Carsten Spohr
saved, the training of the young elite was stopped. Almost 200 prospective pilots went to court. My colleague Felix Stippler spoke to some of them - and to headmaster
Matthias Spohr
, the younger brother of the CEO: Uprising of the young pilots.
Cariad
, the somewhat hesitant software subsidiary of the
Volkswagen Group
, has recently been
receiving medical treatment
from CEO
Herbert Diess
. In cooperation with the map service
TomTom
, Cariad is now to develop a new navigation system. In this case
, the one
who misses out is the
Here
map service
, which was once bought together with the other car manufacturers. Here could use exactly such deals before the planned IPO.
In Grünheide, something like the construction site of the year,
the start of
Tesla is
getting closer.
In the state government, you can see that all the requirements for a final building permit for the plant have been met.
Elon Musk
could
tweet about the start of production
this year
.
For
GM
boss
Mary Barra,
autonomous driving plays
a central role in her ambitious growth
plan
.
Now she has abruptly parted ways with the CEO of her robotic investment
Cruise
.
And
things are
also
going
on at
Canoo
.
The
electric start-up,
which was once founded by the former BMW board member
Stefan Krause
, is leaving three other co-founders, including
Chief Technology Officer Peter Savagian
.
Number of the week: 11 billion
That's how much taxes
Elon Musk
pays
this year, or at least he himself claims on Twitter.
Since November, he's sold $ 14 billion worth of shares in it.
When he declared on Wednesday that that was now "enough", the
Tesla
price
jumped
seven percent upwards.
Including wealth effect for Mr. Musk.
Practical.
Recommended reading for Christmas:
Collecting old, if in doubt, smelly cars may go against the spirit of the times.
They are always beautiful.
Kearney auto world boss
Christian Malorny
has built a "cathedral" for his oldtimers in his home in Berlin Grunewald - and dreams of a super garage on an aircraft carrier, which one would talk about at parties in New York.
My colleague Sonja Banze is immersed in the high society of classic car collectors.
New mobility: Voi ++ Via
The Swedish electric scooter
supplier Voi
gets fresh capital: 115 million dollars for the attack with rental bikes.
We
spoke
to CEO
Fredrik Hjelm
.
He claims: It is enough if a scooter is used one to one and a half hours a day to be able to operate it profitably.
The American mobility start-up
Via
, with which
Daimler
operates the transport service joint venture Via Van in several German cities, wants to submit a secret application to the US stock exchange.
Via offers on-demand shuttle services and software and was most recently valued at $ 3.3 billion.
Deep Drive: Study of the Week
"Chip crisis" is probably on the shitlist for word of the year.
The missing semiconductors have paralyzed entire car factories and endanger the companies' sales plans, even though the demand is actually there.
And because the word will also be on the shitlist for 2022, here is a link to a current paper by the consulting firm Roland Berger.
Ghost driver of the week:
That the Finns are a little wilder?
Clear.
The guy above,
Tuomas Katainen
, however, seems to be a particularly determined Finn.
With 30 kilograms of dynamite he blew up his
Tesla Model S
, perfectly staged and professionally filmed.
Allegedly because the necessary 20,000 euro repair was too expensive for him.
Regardless, you can see the Youtube video in the Finnish original sound here - otherwise, firecrackers will be prohibited for the rest of 2021.
With the best Christmas wishes we say goodbye in a short break.
I wish you an eventful and healthy start to the new year!
Sincerely yours, Lukas Heiny.