How do you sum up the economic forecast for Europe? This story highlights one of the craziest stories in a long time. This is so blindingly suicidal, it cannot be stupidity. This is intentional.
BACKGROUND – You might remember last year due to climate/carbon emission regulations inside Europe EU automakers had to pay fines to the EU Commission if they did not meet electric vehicle targets. In order to avoid the penalties many EU automakers began purchasing ‘carbon credit’ offsets from Chinese EV automakers.
European car makers were paying China for carbon credits, and Chinese car companies began using the payments to lower prices. Europe was, essentially, paying China to undercut their own auto market. The result was European car makers, specifically those in Germany, losing market share to lower price EVs from China. German industry began shrinking.
If that wasn’t crazy enough, what comes next is beyond laughable. As a result of lost sales and diminished volumes, Volkswagen had shut down auto plants. Now, Volkswagen is announcing that Chinese automakers, their China “partners,” will take over the underutilized facilities and start building Chinese cars in Germany.
GERMANY – Volkswagen Group is facing increased pressure from its board to further cut costs despite already announcing radical measures, such as axing around 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 and reducing production capacity by up to 3 million units per year to 9 million, which would make it very difficult to avoid plant closures or sales. Overall, Europe’s largest automaker aims to reduce costs by 20% by the end of 2028.
In an attempt to mitigate the effect of these measures, the automaker appears ready to do what not too long ago would have seemed unthinkable, namely selling China-developed cars in Europe and even sharing its underutilized plants in the region with its Chinese partners.
That’s what CEO Oliver Blume told investors and analysts on April 30 after presenting the company’s first-quarter 2026 results, which saw the automaker’s profit drop 14% to $2.92 billion amid higher U.S. tariffs and intense competition from Chinese carmakers.
In order to deal with excess capacity in Europe and rising competition from Chinese brands in Europe in the coming years, Blume said VW Group is considering selling China-built cars in Europe. It’s the first time that Volkswagen has acknowledged it is contemplating such a move. (read more)
♦ SUMMARY: Volkswagen went to China to sell cars. Volkswagen opened EV auto plants in China bringing in German industrial technology and equipment. China learned from Volkswagen and started their own EV auto companies to compete. Volkswagen EV sales in China started dropping dramatically, and the Chinese EV brands took over.
Due to internal climate regulations in Europe, Volkswagen in the EU then begins giving money to China that subsidizes their competition. China exports their EVs to Europe. Volkswagen EV auto plants start closing. China now takes control of the Volkswagen EV auto plants to build Chinese EVs in Germany.
With operations now inside the house, the Chinese government extract European wealth and pump subsidies into their EV operations in Germany, flooding the European market with cheap EVs that will undercut the German auto manufacturing sector.
You cannot make steel with windmills and solar panel energy. Germany has destroyed much of their coal and nuclear power plants. German energy prices have skyrocketed. German steel is expensive. German cars are expensive as a result. Where do you think the inexpensive steel for the ultra-cheap Chinese EVs will come from?
Now, replace [Germany] with [Canada].
China is the Borg. Lock, stock and barrel
<China is the Borg.>
That reminds me…
I had a hard time redoing our kitchen floor…
Resistance was a few tiles 🙂
Very few tile.
Not really. Unlike the Borg, resistance is not futile. All you have to do to stop the Chinese is refuse to play their game. The problem here is that Germany is being stupid. It adopted a set of luxury beliefs and values that don’t align with reality. Its belief in multiculturalism will ultimately be the act of suicide that does them in. But it’s all perfectly preventable, as Trump is showing with the USA where Democrats have adopted the same luxury beliefs that the Germans have.
Payback for Tsingtao Brewery in Kiau Chau
What a jerk! Between Mertz and Merkel they destroyed Europe. Now all these Marxists were elected and they are inundated with jihadis! 💁🏻♀️ Marxists will do anything for power!
Merz says US can’t put Tomahawk missiles in Germany because rhey have run out of https://www.rt.com/news/639428-trump-ditched-plan-tomahawks-germany/
Merz saying the US is running out of Tomahawk missiles? From one of the same European Nations cheer-leading for Iran saying that they are winning against the US, and Israel?
Remind me again why haven’t we ditched NATO yet, for being a bunch of feckless freeloaders and worse?
World War Reddit is still ongoing. Just compare and contrast the Iran conflict with the war in Ukraine.
I don’t understand why we aren’t forcing them to buy American.
China needs cobalt.
Australia, Canada and the Congo are the major sources.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo/History
The monarchies of Europe are still exploiting.
The little serfs are petty irritants to them.
The main goal is always to maintain and grow the coffers.
If a few hundred or a few thousand, or even greater, of the serfs perish, what is that to the monarchs?
“Let them eat cake”, said Marie Antoinette.
How’d that end for Marie and Louis?
Funny thing that map out of whack Alaska is close to half the size of the us yet they make it look tiny. Every mineral on the legend is in Alaska plus massive amounts of Gold and silver. The PUTZ Clinton claimed large amounts of Alaska land as federal land and will not allow any development.
This is Europes way of helping China avoid the US effort to economically strangle China.
Europe hates the USA. It has ever since WWII when it became absolutely clear that the USA eclipsed all the European powers combined. Europe didn’t like playing second fiddle to what Europe saw as its upstart, uncouth, uneducated, loud little cousin.
That dislike became open hostility when Trump sought to put the USA first. The Eurotrash could tolerate the USA when they were in the room to constrain and nudge the USA in what they believed was the right direction. The long period of doing that led to familiarity which has now morphed into contempt.
How dare the USA pursue policies for its own benefit they huff and puff. Europe will show the USA by committing suicide. The Eurotrash are indeed insane and keen to commit suicide. Let them do it without holding the rest of the world hostage and without gifting their remaining viable economic organs to the Chines purely to spite the USA.
Hilarious! The EUnuchs aren’t only impotent they’re ignorant. Priceless
what’s that guy in the pics name, helmet head?
His expression looks like he had a gaseous anomoly and is acting like nothing has happened.💩
F Merz German Chancellor
Frankly, this group national suicide obsession is dumbfounding. No easy explanation for it.
Liberalism is a mental disorder. QED.
If they do I will never purchase another VAG product.
Did anyone possibly think these Chinese cars might be booby-trapped somehow? Poison drywall and poison dog food and poison pharmaceuticals might be a clue.
Does it have any of that driver “assistance” tech, or self driving capability?
The more complex the electronics operating the car the easier it is to hide extra “features”.
German leaders are NOT stupid. What they are doing is intentionally destroying their own economy, culture, & people.
Period
Not stupid, but hopelessly idealistic, socialist clowns.
It’s going to be a lot worse than this amount stated in the article. This is national suicide. This is going to create an economic death spiral even if it is “only” 50,000 jobs. Those out-of-work people will no longer be spending money in the community thus causing even more job losses and businesses closing.
“…to further cut costs despite already announcing radical measures, such as axing around 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 …”
I suspect that 90% of what happens in government is always intentional.
we like to attribute many events to stupidity
because we can’t believe people can be that evil
Isn’t it time that we realize that yes they can be evil
and yes they are evil?
BINGO
These Germans go from dumb to dumber! Unbelievable, that will seal their demise.
I imagine that this was the endgame that the globalists envisioned for the U.S. as well.
“Volkswagen Group is facing increased pressure from it’s board….”
I don’t see this as any different from what has been happening here.
The board tells the CEO profits are flat, fix it or you’re gone.
So they put less McNuggets in each package or they make the package smaller or they use more artificial crap to make product.
H1 Visas, illegals for labor, on and on each crying for more profits.
At some point the package becomes so small and the product so inedible that the investors sell their stock because there is no more cow to milk.
Sear and Montgomery Wards are a couple of good examples.
I had a 97 year old uncle who recently passed and he swore that the smaller VW diesel engines were practically indestructible and would run with proper maintenance, practically forever. My uncle was a diesel mechanic for all of his life. He knew his stuff.
I was reading a story this morning. I believe from the NYPost, talking about cheap Chinese EV auto’s being driven across the Mexican border and being sold here in the U.S…Chinese prices of $10,000 vs. US prices of $50,000. …Has both Democrats and Republicans worried about U.S. auto makers.
Along the same note…
Thermos (an American co.) recalls millions of food, beverage bottles after 3 suffer permanent vision loss.
To what country did Thermos farm out the manufacture of the bottles to in order to increase profits?