E-car crisis: Kretschmer calls for lower electricity prices

Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) is calling for lower electricity prices in order to boost sales of e-cars in Germany. If you want e-mobility, you have to expand the charging infrastructure and ensure cheap electricity, he said after talks with the management of Volkswagen Saxony in Lichtenstein (Zwickau district).

Volkswagen is represented in Saxony with production sites in Zwickau, Chemnitz and Dresden. The Zwickau car factory was a pioneer within the Group in the switch from combustion engines to electric cars. However, because the demand for such cars is not developing as hoped and there is a large overcapacity at the German VW sites, production in Saxony is also being reduced and staff cut.

Saxony should remain an automotive state

"Volkswagen has a duty," emphasized Kretschmer after the meeting. A solution must be found to ensure that Saxony remains an automotive state. In Zwickau, there is a special industrial core in eastern Germany that must be preserved. "This is a national task. The federal government also has a duty here." The state will also support the transformation in the region with around 100 million euros, it said.

VW is symptomatic of the economy in Germany, said Kretschmer: "We are not competitive." Energy prices and labor costs are simply too high, and more flexibility is needed in labor law. "We see this country tied to the ground like Gulliver with a huge number of tiny micro-controls." There is no alternative to becoming more competitive again compared to other countries. Otherwise there is a risk of further deindustrialization.