The CEO of Audi says that automotive companies will survive the crisis, hospitality companies will not. The VW Group will have limited autonomous driving by the middle of the decade and full autonomous driving by 2040.

“I do not approve of increased support for the automotive industry,” Audus CEO Markus Duesmann said in an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The coronavirus crisis has completely robbed us of our profits. Okay, okay. But almost all of our companies, including manufacturers and suppliers, will survive,” he said.

However, this is not the case in the catering industry and event organizers, where many companies will be forced to permanently lower the blinds. “It hurt a lot. It is just a tragedy. The fact that we are losing ten percent of our turnover is not a tragedy. We are going to get over it and everything is going the same way.”

Billions of euros and florins

The German government decided in November to provide 3 billion euros to the country’s auto industry. This has already raised the amount of state aid that Germany is trying to make the ailing sector competitive to € 5 billion.

One billion euros will come out of this package to support the electric car industry, underlined a spokesman for the Berlin government. Steffen Seibert said the government wants to achieve “long-term structural change” with this support. “We know that the sector is in a difficult situation and this threatens the employment of hundreds of thousands of people,” said Economy Minister Peter Altmaier.

Earlier, Chancellor Angela Merkel convened industry leaders and union representatives to clarify the difficult situation, which is primarily, but not exclusively, caused by the pandemic. The competitiveness of the German automobile industry is declining, especially in the area of ​​electric cars. Nothing shows this better than American Tesla building its new electric car plant in Berlin. This challenge has not affected the German car industry for decades.

France faces similar problems, with President Emmanuel Macron providing € 8 billion in aid to the auto industry.

The Hungarian government is pleased to support investments in automotive multis. In fact, it was Audi in Győr that received the highest state support compared to wages and sales. The group’s workplace in Győr receives four times more public money than a workplace in Germany.

Tesla needs to be caught

In the interview, Duesmann also spoke about the need for Audi and Volkswagen to catch up with Tesla in the United States in terms of autonomous vehicle development. According to Duesmann, autonomous vehicles will roll off the German group’s production lines in the middle of this decade. These will be able to circulate autonomously on motorways, and the urban road network is a much more complex task. According to the expert, self-management independent of the circumstances will be achieved in 2040.

Duesmann said he appreciates what Tesla has accomplished: In terms of how the car looks like a computer, and in terms of the optional feature-based business model for more money-bought vehicles, the American company is a role model.

The CEO is optimistic about the capture of Tesla, the VW Group’s “huge machine,” if they get into something they can deliver some serious performance. But they will have to try.



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