has been as bold as Volkswagen and gone public while the coalition formulates policy, but given that Germany is the European economy with the biggest automotive industry workforce – some 880,000, which is nearly four times the size of the next-biggest, France — the risk to the German economy is significant.
The counter argument says a decisive and rapid switch will pay back with a more competitive industry leading the global transition. But there are established contradictions in both the coalition and car makers’ positions that will need sorting out. This was illustrated by paradoxical positions at COP26, where the outgoing Merkel government, BMW and Volkswagen refused to add their signatures to a declaration on zero-emissions cars, which excluded e-fuels, while Mercedes went in the opposite direction and signed up.
In the space of a month, Diess seemingly has changed his view, saying in November that an exit from internal combustion engines by 2030 “is not possible” and therefore not signing the declaration.