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Mass has not yet been said!
German industry trade fairs are not only overshadowed by Corona, but also by propaganda against the auto industry. Editor-in-chief Bruckberger is annoyed by some things.
Mass has not yet been said!
It's a very special late summer, that of 2021. The pandemic is still keeping us on our toes, but the IAA and Automechanika industry trade fairs are at least giving us back a bit of normality. However, the piece is very small. Apart from the coronavirus, which is why the upcoming Automechanika is taking place in hybrid form, there are numerous other disruptions that are clouding the mood in the industry.
On the opening day of the IAA, activists abseiled from bridges and went swimming in the cold pool in front of the Munich Trade Fair. The posters are clear: “The climate crisis starts here”, “Stop driving climate change”. The (German) car industry is continuing to fuel the climate crisis, criticized Greenpeace transport expert Benjamin Stephan. According to the activists, the farewell to the combustion engine must happen more quickly.
At the same time, fuel prices have recently risen rapidly, so that the influential Bild newspaper ran the headline “Fear for our cars”. Cars are becoming more and more expensive, and the general public who suffer are the common people, the commuters who rely on their cars. And possibly Germany as a business location, which is somewhat dependent on the automobile industry.
There are also challenges for the workshops, which in the future will have to accelerate in the area of alternative drives and deal with more and more software applications. These topics dominate the upcoming Automechanisa in Frankfurt, where, for example, there will be a web talk on the topic of “Connectivity, new data-based business models and the legal framework”.
Despite everything, a piece of the old IAA flair with many world premieres and studies remains. This is what the next smart generation stands for, for example, and not least the market entry of the Chinese brands Wey and Ora.
Of course, this also shows that the car world is changing. And that's definitely a good thing. Whoever brakes loses. It's only annoying when all objectivity is lost in the discussion. This applies to activists as well as to politicians. The former went swimming, while BMW presented the “i-Vision-Circular” recycling study – a completely recyclable electric car. The latter, in turn, are tightening the tax screws (see NoVA and MöSt in Austria) and railing against CO2 emissions from car traffic. Where are the times when politicians were photographed with smiling factory workers? Now there is an election campaign against the car. The politicians sit in their luxury apartments in the city or in their comfortable company cars with a chauffeur. Meanwhile, the average earner who commutes because he can't afford an apartment with a public connection and whose job may depend on the car industry has to bleed. It's difficult to maintain composure. Because one thing is certain: the matter of the mobility transition that has been initiated has not yet been thought through to its conclusion.