Let’s now turn to the relative performance of the auto manufacturing groups over the past 3 months:
Tesla had a relatively weak May-to-July , due to production pauses in Shanghai, but has now soared back to 2nd place, with 5x the volumes. There was close competition at the back of the pack, with SAIC just marginally stepping past Geely to take 8th spot. Both are growing strongly — they have each increased their volume by over 3x since the May-to-July period. Excepting Tesla, the others in the chart have barely grown volume at all over the same period., mainly caused by high energy prices, and thus the reduced cost competitiveness of industrial output.
Hopefully for Germany this response to headwinds at home does not represent a permanent de-industrialization trend of Germany’s economy, including the auto industry. We will have to keep an eye on this situation.