Tag: germany

‘A very serious situation’: Volkswagen could close plants in Germany for the first time in history | CNN Business

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Volkswagen is weighing whether to close factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history as it moves to deepen cost cuts amid rising competition from China’s electric vehicle makers.

In a statement Monday, the German automaker, one of the world’s biggest car companies, said that it could not rule out plant closures its home country. Other measures to “future-proof” the company include trying to terminate an employment protection agreement with labor unions, which has been in place since 1994.

“The European automotive industry is in a very demanding and serious situation,” said Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume. “The economic environment became even tougher, and new competitors are entering the European market. Germany in particular as a manufacturing location is falling further behind in terms of competitiveness.

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Tesla told to dump Autopilot brand in Germany | BBC News

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Tesla has been told to drop the Autopilot brand name, which it uses to promote its driver-assistance software, in Germany.

The Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) confirmed it had told Tesla to scrap the “misleading” term.

It said the term gave customers “incorrect expectations” that they could stop concentrating on the road and let Autopilot take over completely.

Tesla said it had always told drivers to keep their hands on the wheel.

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VW: Prosecutors in Germany and France widen probes | BBC News

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Prosecutors in Germany and France have broadened their investigations into the emissions scandal at Volkswagen.

Authorities in Paris have opened a formal probe into “aggravated fraud” over the use of diesel engine devices that gave misleading emissions results.

And German prosecutors said the number of VW employees now under investigation has increased from six to 17.

VW, which said it is cooperating with all inquiries, had about 11 million cars fitted with the emissions devices.

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Cash Scarcity Threatening Berlin’s Thriving Startup Scene | Bloomberg

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Naren Shaam spoke virtually no German and knew only one person in Berlin. That didn’t keep him from founding his travel planning website, GoEuro, there.

“Berlin was the right choice,” said the 30-year-old Harvard Business School graduate, who now has 20 people working for him at his offices in an old industrial building. “I would do it again here.”

Young people like Shaam have made the German capital a global hotbed for startups, drawn by a raw, artsy atmosphere that rivals Brooklyn’s as an icon of global hip. The city is home to 2,500 fledgling tech companies, employing some 30,000 people, according to the Federal Association of German Startups, which was set up in the city last year.

But even as Berlin jostles with London for the title of Europe’s latest Silicon Whatever, a lack of financing threatens its growth. Shaam, for instance, acknowledges that finding backers would have been easier and valuations higher in the U.S. or Britain, though he felt free-wheeling Berlin, with its growing talent pool, was a better fit

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