Top topic: The car industry fears the biggest flop in tech history
Car experts have been swearing almost unanimously for years that robocars will change the scene much more massively than the drive turnaround towards electric vehicles.
But the end of the Volkswagen hope
Argo AI
shocked the industry.
Suddenly, many fear a multi-billion failure.
The paradox: Although the technology is more advanced than many think, the high costs could bury almost everything - at least for the car manufacturers.
My colleague Jonas Rest has spoken to key stakeholders and describes the great tremors.
Heads: Rachel Empey ++ Feiyu Xu ++ Rolf Breidenbach ++ Herbert Diess ++ Murat Aksel
Rachel Empey
(46), former Fresenius CFO, SAP top manager
Feiyu Xu
(53) and former Hella boss
Rolf Breidenbach
(59) are moving into the supervisory board at ZF Friedrichshafen.
Core task: new boss
Holger Klein
(52) to keep an eye on the transformation and debt reduction.
Herbert Diess
(64), fired as Volkswagen boss in the summer, also gets a new supervisor job.
He is said to even head the committee at chip manufacturer Infenion.
Finally semiconductors in abundance!
The last moves of Diess's VW aegis were also marked by their lack.
Murat Aksel
(50) was one of Diess's closest confidants in Wolfsburg.
What we reported weeks ago, the carmaker has now made official: Aksel is losing his position as VW purchasing manager.
He switches to MAN.
Aksel's successor at VW will also be his predecessor,
Dirk Große-Loheide
(58).
Company: Aston Martin ++ Nvidia ++ Compleo ++ Hella
Aston Martin
is considered one of the strongest automotive brands in the world.
But the British have been plagued by immense financial difficulties for years, even with the entry of the dazzling billionaire
Lawrence Stroll
(63) at the beginning of 2020, things didn't get any better.
My colleagues Margret Hucko and Michael Freitag reveal why the hour of Geely owner
Li Shufu
(59) could come once more.
In order to get involved in the digital business of the future, even large car manufacturers such as
Mercedes
or
Jaguar Land Rover
get involved with
Nvidia
boss
Jensen Huang
(59) - and share the chip and software group in their sales.
But that's risky, writes my colleague Mirjam Hecking: Because the buccaneer from Silicon Valley doesn't see himself as a supplier - he's hijacking new markets.
From 107.50 to 1.28 euros: The share price of the Dortmund charging
station manufacturer Compleo Charging Solutions
has imploded in the past 16 months.
The search for fresh money has failed, now the board of directors, which was appointed only six weeks ago, is taking responsibility for insolvency.
The automotive supplier
Hella
recently sealed a partial sale that flushed 290 million euros into the coffers - just not into Hella itself. The company will distribute the entire proceeds as a special dividend.
The new owner Faurecia
is particularly pleased about this
.
We explain the logic behind the unusual process.
More mobility: Sono Motors ++ BYD ++ Vay
Once again ,
Sono Motors
is pumping its fans to bring the solar car Sion closer to series production.
And that despite the fact that even their own investors are skeptical about the car.
Is it still possible to justify such a high-risk investment?
We asked co-founder
Jona Christians
(29) and CFO
Torsten Kiedel
(44) and talked about planning errors, financing risks and allegations of scamming.
Shortly before Christmas, the highly acclaimed Chinese car manufacturer
BYD
finally arrived in Germany.
The Senger car dealership group has opened the brand's first concept store in Cologne.
The start-up
Vay
is working on a door-to-door service for electric cars.
The special feature: The car rolls without a driver.
Instead, a telehandler takes over the controls.
In Hamburg, Vay is now allowed to start test drives without security personnel on board.
Number of the week: 90
We already had it with solar companions.
The sun can (theoretically) not only power cars.
Ikea
wants to make its delivery service more sustainable and, after a pilot phase in Delft, in the Netherlands, will equip locations worldwide with solar cargo bikes.
They should be able to transport 90 percent of all Ikea products.
The classic Pax wardrobe is probably not one of them.
Deepdrive of the week: hurricane warning for the auto industry
No chips, hardly any cars, great margins: That was the formula for many car manufacturers in 2022.
Some CFOs might wish it could go on like this.
Bain
expert
Klaus Stricker
predicts that this will be the end of it as early as 2023
.
He warns the auto industry at least of a "hurricane", even a "tsunami" is not excluded.
In the interview he explains his expectations.
Ghost Driver of the Year: Elon Musk
Many had feared that
Elon Musk's
(51) hara-kiri reign on
could have a negative impact on
Tesla
.
You should (for the time being) feel confirmed: Since the record high around a year ago, the share of the electric car manufacturer has lost two thirds of its value.
Musk polarizes.
Hardly any of our mobility newsletters this year did without headlines about him, and these were increasingly negative.
This makes Elon Musk our ghost driver of the year.
I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Sincerely yours, Christoph Seyerlein
Do you have any requests, suggestions or information that we should take care of journalistically?
You can reach my colleagues in the Mobility team and me at manage.mobility@manager-magazin.de.