#vera-krupp

#vera-krupp

"The start of the year has been extremely sluggish for German industry," said Elmar Voelker, an analyst at the bank LBBW, noting that "the fleeting hopes of a recovery that had emerged last autumn have evaporated for now."

In 2025, German car companies earned nearly 44% less than in 2024, with earnings before interest and taxes dropping to just 24.9 billion, the lowest since 2020.

Unfortunately it was not enough to secure a majority we will continue to do our utmost in the new works council to bring about change for us and our colleagues at the gigafactory. The unusually heated battle had pitted the carmaker's management against the union and was marked by lawsuits and mutual accusations of slander.

"The verdict is clear proof of the separation of powers in the USA still going strong," BDI board member Wolfgang Niedermark said in a statement. The United States' highest court ruled that so-called reciprocal tariffs imposed by Trump last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were illegal, potentially blocking a key tool Trump has wielded to drive his economic agenda.

The fact that some companies are not planning to switch to S/4HANA until 2030 does not mean that they will wait until then to make the switch. Rather, they simply need this time due to the complexity of their system landscapes. I see this as a reflection of the reality in IT departments. Skills shortages, parallel transformation projects, and limited budgets are also causing schedules to be pushed back.

The IAA covers several key sectors, including steel, cement, aluminum, cars and innovative technologies, such as batteries, solar, wind and nuclear. The new rules would set a minimum requirement for projects using public funds. For example, aluminum sector projects would require 25% of the aluminum to be produced in the EU and with low-carbon technologies. For cement, the equivalent rate would be 5%.

The Twaice EIB financing is aimed at accelerating growth as electrification drives expansion across battery energy storage systems and electric mobility markets. The company develops analytics software based on real-time and historical battery data, enabling operators to anticipate degradation, optimise performance and extend asset lifetime across large and growing fleets. Back in 2022, the German company raised 30 million dollars in additional Series B financing led by global investment firm Coatue.

Given the daunting nature of the challenges they face in the era of Donald Trump, it is perhaps understandable that European politicians should wish to get away from it all. This week, in what is being billed as a leaders' retreat, a remote castle in the Belgian countryside has been selected for an EU summit on competitiveness. The pastoral setting may soothe the spirits of attending heads of state; but it belies the urgency of the debate they need to have.

Berlin's newly announced program, reported on by various outlets, grants buyers of new electrified vehicles between $1,700 and $7,000. This figure depends on several factors, including the powertrain of the vehicle and income level of the buyer, but is meant to help revive stagnant sales one of Germany's key industries. Photo by: Scout Motors For the first time EREVsvehicles where batteries power the wheels and are recharged by a small combustion enginewill explicitly be eligible under the new program.

"In the era of great powers, our freedom is no longer a given. It is under threat," said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the opening of the Munich Security Conference earlier in February. Merz explicitly mentioned China. "China has the ambition to shape global affairs, laying the foundations for this over many years with strategic patience. In the foreseeable future, Beijing could draw level with the US in terms of military might. China is systematically exploiting the dependencies of others, reinterpreting the international order on its own terms," he said.

"The future will be, for sure, that you are not typing any data information into an SAP system. You can instead ask certain analytical questions with your voice. You can trigger operational task workflows. You can also make entries in the system with your voice-performance feedback, pipeline entries, etc. The technological capabilities are there, it really is now about the execution."

Things certainly get harder if there are outside organizations who are pushing Tesla in the wrong direction. It's difficult to say that then we would expand, if we had outside organizations who were making things very difficult. We're not going to shut down the factory, but we wouldn't expand it either.