Top topic: Brother dispute at Continental and Vitesco
The automotive suppliers
Continental
and
Vitesco
, colossuses with a combined turnover of over 40 billion euros, were one until a year ago.
They parted in the best of harmony.
But now the diesel affair has caught up with the companies.
Former and still active top executives argue with sometimes bizarre vehemence as to who knew what and when of possible misconduct - and who didn't.
The focus is on Conti Supervisory Board Chairman
Wolfgang Reitzle and
Georg Schaeffler
, who is a major shareholder in both companies
.
My colleagues Sven Clausen and Michael Freitag report on the diesel dispute in the Conti family.
Heads: Martin Peters ++ Carlos Tavares ++ Trudy Harrison ++ Eric Li
Martin Peters
(55), head of the automotive supplier
Eberspächer
, is under pressure.
Recently, the Swabians have had little success: demand for exhaust systems collapsed, a hacker attack paralyzed almost everything for a month, and the complex business with catalytic converters put pressure on liquidity.
Lenders have requested an Independent Business Review.
The banks are heating up Eberspächer.
Carlos Tavares
(63), CEO of Stellantis, is no longer interested in the European car manufacturers association ACEA.
Tavares probably didn't like the course of President and BMW boss
Oliver Zipse
(58).
Until the end (in vain) he wanted to prevent the end of combustion engines in Europe from 2035, Tavares wants Stellantis to be electric by 2030.
Critics express doubts;
but the Opel mother is already planning a "Freedom of Mobility Forum" as an ACEA replacement.
Oliver Zipse will hardly be available as the first guest speaker.
Trudy Harrison
(46), British Minister for Transport, stamps out government subsidies for electric cars.
Most recently, there was a £1,500 subsidy in Great Britain for electric vehicles costing a maximum of £32,000.
Harrison does not expect any negative impact on registration numbers.
Will Germany's Economics Minister
Robert Habeck
(52) take an example from the new regulation of the "environmental bonus" for 2023?
Eric Li
(58), boss of Volvo's mother
Geely
, makes smartphones.
Geely venture Xingji Shidai grabs majority stake in cellphone maker Meizu.
O-Ton Geely to Reuters: There is a "close connection in technologies" between car cockpits and smartphone software.
Company: Vinfast ++ Lufthansa ++ Europcar
Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Oberhausen, Hamburg: The first German locations for branches of the e-car brand
Vinfast
have been determined.
In the second half of the year, the Vietnamese in this country want to get started with their cars VF8 and VF9.
Vinfast also wants to produce in Europe around 2025.
Probably in Germany, but where exactly?
My colleague Anna Driftschröer shows where the trend is headed.
As recently as April,
Lufthansa
boss
Carsten Spohr
(55) had announced a final farewell to the
Airbus A380
.
The airline has already sold six of the giant jets, and the remaining eight have been parked in an "aircraft graveyard".
Now Spohr could resurrect them.
Lufthansa is examining a comeback of those eight planes.
The increasing desire to fly makes it possible.
(Almost) all set with
Europcar
:
Volkswagen
, Attestor and Pon Holdings can take over the car rental company and convert it into a mobility platform.
By the key date of June 10, a good 87 percent of shareholders had tendered their shares for 50 cents each.
With almost 4.4 billion shares tendered, the deal is currently worth around 2.2 billion euros.
If the targeted threshold of 90 percent falls by June 29, 51 cents per share will be due.
Even more mobility: e-rickshaws ++ e-mopeds ++ eVTOLs
We're sticking with electromobility, but are now looking to India.
There,
Audi
will in future equip e-rickshaws from the start-up
Nunam
with discarded batteries from e-tron test vehicles.
Aren't the batteries running low?
"We build more test vehicles than Lamborghini production cars every year," Audi says.
Lime
wants to integrate e-mopeds into its fleet again.
The company quickly stopped
initial attempts with
Niu vehicles.
Now it is supposed to be an in-house development, which at first glance looks much slimmer than the Niu mopeds.
US start-up
Overair
gets 145 million dollars to further develop a vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL).
The model called "Butterfly" is said to stand out from the competition due to its particularly quiet background noise, among other things.
Perhaps also because, unlike various competitors recently, the CEO does not have to leave immediately.
Number of the week: 120 billion
Chips remain in short supply, and many automotive industry plants are still underutilized.
Many semiconductors come from
Taiwan
.
And the country wants to cement its leading position.
According to the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei, Taiwan's industry is currently investing
120 billion US dollars in 20 new factories
.
The chips are a source of money and security for the country at the same time.
China does not recognize Taiwan's independence.
In the event of an escalation, one would have to rely on allies such as the USA.
It's hard to imagine that Taiwan could drop its chip dependency.
Deep drive of the week: Munich's e-scooter balance sheet
The city of Munich wanted to know exactly: How do electric scooters fit into a big city?
The results of the study can now be read on 108 pages.
Positive:
14 percent
of trips with an
e-scooter
have replaced a car trip.
Cons: There are
over 50 accidents
in a million scooter trips .
For comparison: in a million bicycle trips, there are only nine.
dream dancer of the week
167 million videos are said to be viewed on
TikTok
every minute .
Of course, as a car manufacturer, you can't do without it.
Mercedes
and
Porsche
have been there for a long time, and now VW and Renault have announced their launch on the platform in quick succession.
Will Herbert Diess
(63) and
Luca de Meo
(55) dance
there soon ?
After all, the app is famous for its very own choreographies.
And dancing car bosses are said to have already existed, ask Elon Musk (50) .
Have an eventful or even exhilarating week!
Sincerely yours, Christoph Seyerlein
