Germany’s car industry is losing its famous Vorsprung – and it can’t all be blamed on Trump and tariffsIt was once the envy of the world – but now its arrogance and failure to change or take risks lie at the root of its declinebout 50 years ago, a man named Hans Bauer who worked in marketing for a German carmaker came up with the sloganor “advantage through technology”. Poetry it wasn’t. The slogan seemed a little clumsy and too heavy on consonants, sounding harsh even to German ears.
For inspiration, the carmakers looked to Detroit where Henry Ford had introduced assembly lines and started mass-producing cars. A man named Adolf Hitler cooked up the idea for a Volkswagen, a “people’s car”, What’s more, the industry has become synonymous with the German economy as a whole because it so perfectly encapsulates the nation’s business model. In essence, the carmakers rely on highly skilled and well-paid workers who tend to stay with one company throughout their careers. Codetermination, whereby employees have some say in management decisions, is the norm.
However, the sense of superiority that Germans developed over the years has produced some spectacular failures. In the 1980s, Mercedes, then called Daimler-Benz, went on a billion-dollar spree to turn the automaker into a diversified technology group. After that strategy faltered, the company took over the US automaker Chrysler, hoping to forge a truly global player.