Germany is Having an Existential Crisis About Cars
With the contradiction between Germans' climate anxiety and their love of huge SUVs, it’s no surprise that carmakers are struggling.
A “new object of hate.”
Photographer: TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFPAmerica’s automakers hit rock bottom in the eyes of the public when their executives went to Washington in 2008 to beg for a bailout — in corporate jets.
Now it’s the German car industry’s turn to suffer an image crisis and, as with General Motors Co. and Chrysler a decade ago, it couldn’t be happening at a less auspicious moment. Amid trade wars and plunging China sales, the number of cars rolling off Germany’s production lines has dropped by 12% this year and exports by 14%. European auto sales fell 3% in the first eight months of 2019.1 With demand expected to remain weak for a couple of years, the German parts supplier Continental AG isn’t ruling out cuts to working hours and jobs.