00:00And speak to Ferdinand Dödenhofer, founder and director of the Center Automotive Research.
00:06Ferdinand, thanks so much for your time listening to what Natalie was saying about this plan for the future of
00:11Volkswagen.
00:12Do you think it's addressing the core issues or perhaps just delaying the inevitable?
00:18So if you look at VW, you see several problems.
00:22One problem you just mentioned, that is the cost problem in Germany, and at the moment they are discussing how
00:31to reduce costs or to close plants.
00:34That's one problem, which is facing the European side.
00:38However, the future of VW is not just linked to Germany or to Europe.
00:45The most important market in the world is the Chinese car market.
00:49And VW, as well as other car makers, as European and German car makers, have a bad performance at the
00:55moment in China.
00:57So it's very important that they come back, that return in China.
01:02Return in China is as important as, for example, the situation in Germany.
01:08Next thing is you have to look at the U.S. market.
01:12VW is traditionally very, very weak in the U.S. market.
01:17And therefore, competitors like Toyota are very strong and earn a lot of money over there.
01:23So VW has to do several things.
01:26One thing is to become stronger in China.
01:31Second thing is to look how to advance in North America.
01:37And the third thing is to find a solution to high costs in Germany.
01:44They are in discussion.
01:46And I think best would be to go together with the trade unions, try to find solutions and not start
01:52just closing plants.
01:55It's interesting.
01:56It's such contrasting fortunes.
01:58If we look at what's happening with Chinese company Xiaomi, who this week has just announced they are going to
02:05be launching into Europe in 2027.
02:07This is a company that has only started making cars in 2024.
02:10This week, the Chinese government actually came up with guidelines to help companies doing business in foreign countries sort of
02:19expand in an orderly fashion.
02:21Do you agree with China that there needs to be a lot more structure perhaps around how this expansion is
02:27going?
02:29So what we see is, we know Xiaomi a little bit, they have great cars, they have great technologies, and
02:39I'm pretty sure that they will have a big success in Europe step by step.
02:46That is one thing that means if you have good technology, you advance technology, the market is yours.
02:55So the Europeans and the Germans have to combat that and to come up with similar technologies.
03:04The other thing is other Chinese convicts.
03:07We name it, it's BYD.
03:09BYD is very, very, very, very aggressive.
03:14It's going into market with prizes which are very uncompetitive for the others.
03:22So the Chinese should find a solution so that we can compete with others, however, compete with fair prizes and
03:38all these things.
03:39And at the moment, we think that BYD is the biggest problem in Europe, which is threatening cooperation with China.
03:54All right.
03:55Thank you so much for speaking to us.
03:56Ferdinand Dudenhofer is the founder and director of the Center Automotive Research.
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