“Carmakers could face fate of utilities”

An energy transition in mobility could pose the same challenges for German carmakers that the power transition has posed for big German utilities, writes Michael Bauchmüller in an opinion piece for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “If the carmakers don’t pay attention, e-mobility will be for them what sun and wind turned out to be for RWE and E.ON: a Waterloo,” writes Bauchmüller. The utilities repeatedly pointed to nuclear power as a bridging technology for the shift to renewables, and were unprepared when the changing attitude of the population pushed the government to pull the plug on nuclear after Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, Bauchmüller points out. This time, it's consumers who will pull the plug if carmakers continue to cling to diesel and petrol for too long.  “It won’t be long until the German car industry will feel this fading love. For them, the most recent crisis has characteristics of Fukushima,” writes Bauchmüller.

Read the opinion piece in German here.

For background, read the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.