The sentiment seems to be that this is unique to Germany but is there any country that can rival China in manufacturing?
Varta has moved (outsourced?) pretty much all consumer batteries we get in Australia to China.
German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
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Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#22Rip German industry. Gerhard Schroeder was a good Chancellor.
Schroeder lobbied for Germany to remain dependent on Russian gas. Huge net negative in the long run.
Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The assumption that Europeans can just absorb high energy prices is crazy. Ought to be a national imperative to invest in infrastructure to lower prices.
The problem there is the "national imperative" part imho. All EU politicians are hell-bent on ignoring any kind of market-based solutions, doing everything through regulations and picking winners. So there will never be a proper market equilibrium and therefore prices will always be higher than in places without all those regulatory interventions. Investment won't help there in any way, because if that investment wer…
I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say. There is currently a lot of demand for building out solar and wind in Germany. There is also large demand for building battery storage. The demand especially for the latter comes from the mismatch between supply and demand in electricity markets, so in a sense the battery operators hope to do arbitrage in a way that will also increase the efficiency of the market (by allowing the use of solar after dark).
This is very much a market-based solution. What the state has to do is provide permits and stuff for getting the batteries etc. actually built; which the state is doing but not as fast as it could right now. (at least in Germany)
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#24> Varta lost its key customer in the spring: Apple plans to source the rechargeable "CoinPower" button cells for its AirPods headphones from China in the future. It's another tough loss for German and European industry. Battery tech requires a lot of electricity and German energy prices are simply not competitive. And EU regulations limit how much the German government can subsidize industrial electricity costs. Lots…
I think it's a self made crisis. They turned off their atomic power plants in the middle of an energy crisis (even the current German government admitted that it was a mistake: https://clashreport.com/world/articles/germanys-merz-admits-...) and now importing far expensive natural gas from middle east and USA
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#25If this were a US company with better PR, I wonder if it would have read more like:
"Varta Boldy Undertakes Strategic Restructuring to Unlock Value and Sharpen Business Focus"
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Schroeder lobbied for Germany to remain dependent on Russian gas. Huge net negative in the long run.
Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?
Nuclear. The Schroeder government initiated the German nuclear phase-out (which was later reverted and re-reverted by Merkel). But rumor has it that the nuclear phase-out wasn't only motivated by the greens being anti-nuke, but also by Schroeder being interested in pushing gas instead.
Btw., after his chancellorship, Schroeder got a post at the Russian state gas supplier Gazprom.
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#27It's not that bad, they still make money on consumer- and micro batteries. Needs a bit of restructuring.
Yeah, they make some of the best low-self-discharge rechargeables. All of my AA and AAAs are Varta. They're extremely prominent in lots of stores in Europe. When I read the headline, I was like, "But how?" but the Apple angle makes sense.
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#28so sad to see Germany's fall right in front of our eyes.
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Schroeder lobbied for Germany to remain dependent on Russian gas. Huge net negative in the long run.
Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?
His direct involvement with the Russian oil and gas sector (and, most likely, influence on their behalf) is a lot more recent than just 'the 2000s' [0][1].
[0] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ex-german-chancellor-sc...
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Rosneft
Re: German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications
#30The sentiment seems to be that this is unique to Germany but is there any country that can rival China in manufacturing?
Many can, they just choose not to. They balance the economy different instead of going all in on manufacturing and export. They don't suppress domestic consumption, have strong labor protection laws etc.