[lenkite]

Volkswagen Group (and in general German manufacturing) profits slumped by ~50% because of banning Russian gas and stringent U.S. import tariffs. The increase in gas costs made German manufacturing uncompetitive compared to China.

[mejutoco]

One main reason is they are not selling as much in China.

> Over the past few years foreign carmakers in China have been flattened by local rivals such as BYD that have fast become world leaders in electric vehicles. As the Chinese market has gone electric, foreign carmakers’ share of it plummeted from 62% in 2020 to 35% last year. VW has lost its position as the top carmaker in the country. Last year it sold 2.9m cars in China, down from 3.9m in 2020. Only around 200,000 were EVs.

https://www.economist.com/business/2025/12/04/to-halt-their-...

> because of banning Russian gas

That is the symptom. The real reason is the lack of diversification from Germany, assuming that hard discount would last forever.

[epolanski]

Neither of the two are The tipping points.

The biggest VW market is china.

Just to point out, in 2020 one every 20 vehicles sold globally was a VW in China. VW sold more than twice of Tesla at its peak in China alone.

And VW has US plants so it's not that impactful, not different than us automakers woes.

[cdud3]

That and like crazy increasing burocracy.