NRW’s Entrepreneur President Arndt Kirchhoff still doesn’t consider the automotive industry to be over. The German auto industry is quite healthy and doesn’t need protection through extra duties on Chinese imports, said Kirchhoff to the “Westfalenpost” (Friday edition).
Although Chinese manufacturers are faster in developing and producing electric cars, this will change very soon, said the Sauerland entrepreneur (Kirchhoff Group, auto supplier) surprisingly optimistically.
Kirchhoff points out that no country in the world invests as much in research and development and the modernization of production sites as German companies do. The 69-year-old expects around 280 billion euros to be invested in research and development over the next four years, and German companies in the automotive industry will spend about 130 billion euros on investments in their production facilities.
However, it’s questionable to what extent this will happen at the German location. Here, Kirchhoff sees as the top priority for the upcoming federal government to significantly reduce the burden of energy costs immediately, in order to restore competitiveness.
Kirchhoff is skeptical about a return to nuclear power in Germany. He considers a quick exit from coal-fired power generation, which North Rhine-Westphalia is aiming for by 2030, to be unrealistic.