Chancellor Scholz invites carmaker CEOs to discuss mobility transition – media reports

Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz has invited the country’s top car executives and other experts to discuss the country’s lagging shift to clean transport, according to news media reports. The meeting in the chancellery will take place on 10 January, Spiegel Online reports, without naming its sources. The government is increasingly concerned that the rollout of electric cars in Germany is faltering, and that its carmakers could lose out to Chinese competitors in particular, who are increasingly present in the German market. The slow rollout of charging infrastructure is seen as a key issue, and will be a central topic of discussions, Spiegel reported.

Germany’s transport sector is not on track to meet its climate targets, and there is widespread criticism that the transport ministry, which is led by Free Democrat (FDP) Volker Wissing, is not taking sufficient action to lower emissions. In addition to BMW head Oliver Zipse, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius and VW’s Oliver Blume, the list of invitees also includes the CEO of chipmaker Infineon, Jochen Hanebeck, the head of batterymaker Northvolt’s German operations, Christofer Haux, as well as the director of clean mobility think tank Agora Energiewende, Christian Hochfeld, among others. Economy minister Robert Habeck (Greens), finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP), transport minister Wissing, environment minister Steffi Lemke (Greens), and labour minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) will also participate in the meeting according to current plans, reports Spiegel.