Mr. Hofmann, a new federal government has formed in Berlin.

Are you satisfied with the coalition agreement?

Sven Astheimer

Editor responsible for corporate reporting.

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Christian Müßgens

Business correspondent in Hamburg.

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By and large: yes.

The new government is not satisfied with abstract goals, but backs up its declarations of intent with concrete plans.

If you compare that with the lyrics of earlier coalition agreements, the traffic light is surprisingly concrete in many places.

One goal is 80 percent share of renewable energy in electricity generation by the year 2030. In your opinion, is that realistic?

That is ambitious, but correct.

The decisive factor will be whether the desired acceleration in planning is implemented quickly, because this is where there is a huge problem, for example with the expansion of wind energy.

What is IG Metall's highest priority at the moment?

There are a lot of topics, but in mobility it is clearly the topic of charging infrastructure.

There will be a crash if we don't follow up on it.

The programs to promote electric cars are ongoing, manufacturers' factories are being converted to e-mobility, and customers want the vehicles.

At the same time, there are too few charging stations.

It doesn't go together.

Currently, the industry is mainly burdened by the shortage of microchips.

The situation in the Volkswagen Group appears to be particularly critical, and production may drop again next year.

What's wrong?

It is obvious that VW distributes its available semiconductors within the group to where the margins are highest.

One sees little or no impact of the semiconductor crisis in the premium brands Porsche or Bentley.

In the volume group with VW, Seat or Škoda, however, the effects are serious.

The allocation helps, of course, to keep profits stable at the group level.

On the other hand, VW is losing market shares in the cheaper segments, which are difficult to regain once they are able to deliver again.

Some competitors seem to be getting through the crisis better.

What do they do differently?

Toyota has had no problems at all for a long time because the company had much higher inventories.

The bottleneck is only now emerging for the Japanese, while in Germany there was great need in some places last year, including Wolfsburg.

Tesla, on the other hand, is in a better position because the company relied on its own chip design early on.

German manufacturers have to improve quickly.

Tesla also occupies a top position when it comes to productivity.

The new factory in Grünheide will increase the pressure on German competitors.

High productivity is not Tesla's sole domain. In the run-up to the latest planning round of the VW supervisory board, the employee representatives pushed through that billions will be invested in Wolfsburg for the production of the new, semi-autonomous Trinity electric model, which will roll off the assembly line in 2026. A factory outside the current factory premises is being considered for this purpose, but several scenarios are currently still being planned. We also want to prove that high productivity and good work are not mutually exclusive. VW is drawing level with Tesla, but they are clearly ahead in another area: software. That is the decisive future field.

The subject is now in the hands of VW CEO Herbert Diess.

Before that, there had been a big bang in Wolfsburg after he had calculated a reduction of up to 30,000 jobs.

He may stay, but he has to give up power.

What happens now?