Germany has an economist who thinks it’s possible. Really. Moritz Schularick. President of the Kiel Institute. He looked into the abyss of auto-industry consolidation and said hello. His take? BYD buys Volkswagen. Not maybe. Probably.
“Volkswagen will probably be bought…”
The German giant is bleeding. Slowly, but surely. Sales in China are tanking. Local rivals are fierce. EV development costs? Astronomical. Software is a mess. VW is restructuring. Hard. Tens of thousands of jobs could go. Plants closing. Assets being sold just to survive.
Niall Ferguson agreed. In the same Süddeutsche Zeitung chat he warned Europe is asleep at the wheel. China pours money into EVs. Europe yawns. Ferguson predicts Chinese cars filling European garages soon. He suggests a trade-off. Let Chinese brands in? Sure. Build cars here first. Use access as leverage. Smart? Maybe. Too late? Likely.
There’s no offer on the table. None. But the whispers are loud.
Porsche—historically the cash cow—is bleeding cash too. Profits dropped 93%. They want to dump their stake in Bugatti Rimac. Reports swirl about selling Lamborghini or Ducati too. Even the software division Cariad failed. So hard that VW pivoted. Billions poured into partnerships instead. Rivian. Xpeng. Borrowing tech. Buying speed.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can just buy the factory?
Analysts argue this chopping game makes VW slimmer. Sharper. More attractive? Maybe. A bloated bear is easier to trip. A leaner one fights back.
Schularick’s point stands regardless of the actual merger likelihood. The dynamic flipped. Chinese makers aren’t just cheap rivals anymore. They have deep pockets. Deep enough to buy legacy. BYD is massive. Global scale. Financial muscle. Theoretically they could.
Political hurdles would be nightmare fuel. Regulatory scrutiny across Europe would be intense.
And what about the US? Restrictions on connected vehicle tech are tightening. Chinese data. American suspicion. The deal faces a wall there.
But back here? The fear is real. The question isn’t really about BYD buying VW next month. It’s about who owns the narrative now. The landscape shifted while Europe held a committee meeting. Now the competitors hold the checkbooks.
Open ending. Or maybe just open wounds. 📉
