German car companies suffer heavy electric shock

Germany’s three big carmakers have cut their European production by a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels, amid competition from Chinese rivals and falling demand for electric vehicles.

Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were already struggling with long-term problems, ranging from rising energy and labour costs in their central European heartlands to malfunctioning software and a tricky pivot away from the internal combustion engine. Initially they were able to ride out the effects of the pandemic thanks to a backlog of orders, but a recovery seems to be running out of steam.

The three collectively made half a million fewer cars at their European factories between January and May than they had done over the same months in 2019, according to figures released by MarkLines, an analytics