When it comes to e-mobility, all eyes turn to the front row: the automakers unveiling exciting new battery-powered cars that outperform internal combustion engines.

For many of them, the transformation can hardly go fast enough.

Gustave parts

Business correspondent in Stuttgart.

  • Follow I follow

However, the situation seems to be different in many second-tier companies – the automotive suppliers who employ hundreds of thousands of people in Germany.

At least that's what it sounds like from the supplier Mahle: Strong forces of persistence, some doubt e-mobility and the margins that can be earned there.

They think that the combustion engine lasts longer than many people think.

And then there are those responsible who no longer want to go through the strenuous transformation.

This is how company experts describe it in the FAZ

Like a soccer team

On Good Friday, the group parted ways with its new boss Matthias Arleth after less than four months.

He is considered an expert in e-mobility and a driver of transformation.

The group had emphasized these skills when it announced the personnel in the fall.

But Arleth wasn't able to push through with his reforms, wanted too much too quickly and didn't manage to take the management team with him, even emotionally.

Jürgen Kalmbach, deputy head of the supervisory board and, until recently, head of the works council, uses a comparison: "It was like a football team to which the coach has no access," he says to the FAZ. You don't change the team either.

It's hard to say who's to blame.

Nicknamed piston grinder

This is the fourth time in seven years that the group is looking for a boss.

Arleth's predecessors Wolf-Henning Scheider and Jörg Stratmann had each put up with the influential chairman of the supervisory board, Heinz Junker, for around three years.

He had managed Mahle himself for over 18 years before moving to the top of the supervisory board in 2014.

Although Mahle is hardly known to the general public, it is by no means a small company in its industry.

The foundation group, which was once nicknamed Kolbenmühle because of its most important product, has a turnover of almost 10 billion euros and is one of the 20 largest automotive suppliers in the world.

Four years ago, almost 80,000 employees worked for the group, in 2020 there were still 72,000 due to a savings program.

For comparison: Deutsche Bank has a good 80,000 employees, Commerzbank has 45,000.

At the end of 2020, around 33,000 people were employed at Mahle in Europe, 4,000 in the Stuttgart area alone.

Anthroposophical Foundation

The group, which the brothers Hermann and Ernst Mahle made great, also plays an important role in social life in Stuttgart.

He finances the Mahle Foundation, which owns 99.9 percent of the group and, with the Filder Clinic, a respected hospital.

It is anthroposophically oriented and supports Waldorf schools as well as other educational institutions.

It finances projects that promote GMO-free agriculture and adhere to the Demeter guidelines.