Chinese buyers interested in unwanted German Volkswagen factories
Chinese buyers interested in unwanted German Volkswagen factories
Car giant Volkswagen to wind down production at two factories
China could buy factories for foothold in Germany, says source
Volkswagen open to selling to China buyer, says source
This would help Chinese companies sidestep tariffs, but also to keep some of those jobs, I guess.
Volkswagen shareholders weighing up the benefits of short term gain versus long term damage....
I wonder if this is a sign of Chinese sophistication or the fact that cars — especially electric cars — are essentially commodities now. Kind of like when IBM sold its consumer hardware business to Lenovo because laptops just became commodities with lots of competition and tight profit margins.
I mean, it’s a rare thing that doesn’t eventually become a commodity. England used to dominate the textile industry because of superior technology — until American spy Francis Cabot Lowell stole their power loom tech by having a photographic memory.
Interesting to read that, essentially, international industrial spying has existed for the entirety of "industrialized" times. Also, since Lowell did this prior to photography, what would folks have called his memory?
Foxconn is betting on exactly that story. They are moving into the OEM market for EVs. The idea is that Foxconn will put together the chassis and batteries, and then the "actual" car companies will slap on everything else and sell the car.
Bad idea
Yea, but I guess Europe is in for a rough century squeezed between China and magaism, who are more likely to agree to dismember it than to let it be the halfway point.
Why?
It's hard to figure out what other course of action they have at this point. VW's factories in the rest of the world (including in China) have been propping up their loss-making German operations for years; it's not sustainable.
A reminder for what happens when someone loses (a limb or the whole body) in the game of free market competition - they get taken over by the survivors. Every cycle decreases the number of players.
Ofcourse they are buying.