PITY THE GERMANS. JUST AS THEY achieved global dominance in petrol and diesel cars, a Silicon Valley parvenu changed the whole game. Only a few years ago, they were basking in their oil-powered glory. Their smugness was palpable, their hegemony complete.
Booming Volkswagen was the world’s biggest car-maker, overtaking Toyota and the long-dominant Yanks. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes ruled the premium car sector.
Then came Tesla’s rise and diesel cheating and EV evangelism. Suddenly, the German car industry does not look so clever.
Mercedes, self-proclaimed inventor of the petrol car, have only just launched their first new-from-the-ground-up electric car, almost a decade behind Elon Musk’s Model S. BMW fleetingly sparkled with their ingenious i3 and wonderful i8, the most modern sports car of the past decade. Then they drifted into a DC doze. It has taken nine years since the i3 to launch their next bespoke EV. You will meet the iX shortly.
Meanwhile, those self-proclaimed Vorsprungers at Audi were asleep. Progress through technology indeed! Audi were slow to embrace EV and their efforts thus far have been undistinguished. The only exception is the fine e-tron GT and that is a re-bodied Porsche. Indeed, the Taycan is the sole bright electric light in an otherwise dark few years for the Germans.
Why have the Germans been so slow? Complacency? Perhaps. More likely, the car business has changed profoundly in just a few years. Internal combustion masters, they were ill-prepared for the seismic shift to software prominence and slow to master the voodoo
