“That tiny bit of electrics”

German car supplier Schaeffler’s lower profit expectation might herald a watershed for the country’s entire automotive industry, Max Hägler writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The supplier’s plunge in the stock market could be a “warning shot” that electric mobility “will make earning money more difficult” both for carmakers and their suppliers, Hägler argues. “Roughly speaking, an electric car is not half as complex as a car with a combustion engine,” he says, meaning that suppliers can sell fewer components. The Centre Automotive Research (CAR) of Duisburg-Essen University estimates that half of Schaeffler’s turnover is made with combustion engine parts, Hägler says. The supplier from Bavaria is therefore especially susceptible to changes brought about by the e-car, but “other suppliers like Bosch or Continental will also suffer”, he says.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers for background.