This year will decide how much the reputation of the German car industry will be worth in the future.

So far, the slogan "Vorsprung durch Technik" has not only characterized a brand, but also the claim of the entire automotive industry in Germany.

What other country prides itself on its engineering prowess, selling in large numbers around the world premium and luxury cars designed for freeways?

But this reputation is based on the cars with petrol and diesel engines that were invented here.

Now the German car industry is to reinvent itself.

With electric cars pioneered in the US and China;

with high-capacity batteries that have so far been manufactured by Chinese and Koreans;

with cars as driving entertainment platforms whose software has to keep up with developments by tech giants from the USA or China.

As if these weren't already titanic challenges, the market development and the general conditions for the German automotive industry are also providing the greatest possible uncertainty.

According to the wishes of the federal government and the Brussels Eurocrats, the German and European car industry should focus all their energy on electric cars.

But it is not certain whether the demand for battery electric cars will grow as rapidly as the politicians would like.

For the time being, such cars are only attractive to a small customer segment, in suburban housing estates, where the wealthy e-car buyer can set up an individual charging station in his garage.

The charging times are too long for long-distance drivers, and there are only 11,862 public fast charging stations in Germany.

Many billions in taxes

Battery electric cars only accounted for 22 percent of new registrations in Germany in November.

But public funding will be reduced in 2023, and cheap e-cars from Europe are not in sight.

While Europeans are still thinking about domestic battery production, from 2023 Chinese car manufacturers will try to conquer the European market in large numbers with technically sophisticated products.

The Chinese do not despise internal combustion engines either.

The French carmaker Renault wants to outsource this to a kind of bad company, but the Geely group is happy to take over half of it and continue to supply continents outside of Europe with the old technology, which the EU Commission regards as obsolete.

Nevertheless, she wants to introduce expensive Euro 7 emission standards for the last few years of combustion technology.

In the future, limit values ​​are to be complied with even at 45 degrees of heat at full throttle and with a full load on a slope of 1000 meters above sea level.

The obvious solution of making the world's 1.2 billion combustion engine cars more climate-friendly with sustainable e-fuels is largely rejected.

However, one important prerequisite for a new supply chain for e-car production in Germany is missing: a stable energy supply at least in the medium term at affordable prices.

The Berlin government would have to ensure stable prospects, for example with an additional supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

But apparently the Green Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck prefers higher prices and further pressure towards the energy transition.

But no battery manufacturer will invest in Germany like this.

Especially not when, alternatively, billions in grants are offered in the United States.

The times when car companies from Asia wanted to come to Germany with development centers in order to have all the suppliers and specialists in the industry close at hand could soon be a thing of the past.

Germany would thus become the periphery of the automotive industry.

Car opponents may be right.

It is possible that some secretly wish for a bit of de-industrialization.

A large part of the billions in taxes that green politicians like to throw around has so far been earned from cars, of all things, which are unpopular with them.

If Germany's (car) industry is to continue to ensure prosperity and at the same time become a protagonist of a more climate-friendly world, better framework conditions and a clear course are needed for German cars.

If the current hesitation persists, Berlin's leaders will later have to be accused of wasting an important part of Germany's industrial future.