Volkswagen

We get to Merlin Stone on the ground, around the big altar stone.

I mean, the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Stones you would pick up to, like, skip across the water.

Nice little flat ones.

It blew me away.

So every time I hear that clip now with Wayne talking about this site, I hear something new every time.

Apparently the altar stone he's talking about is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Yeah.

Also die Iraner haben quasi diese, diesen sicheren Zufluchtsort-Mythos quasi zerstört.

Und die haben dann erzählt, ähm, Brazer, we need different factories now, weil die Iraner haben genau auf diese Fabriken und so was gezielt und jetzt wird VW und 'n Werk in Sachsen-Anhalt wird auf einmal jetzt dafür genutzt, damit Israelis dort Waffen produzieren können.

Wohl wissend mal ergänzend dazu, für die, die's nicht wissen: Dieser ganze VW, diese Misere begann ja mit dem Abgasskandal, der kurz danach begann, nachdem VW, weil BlackRock Hauptanteilseigner war, BlackRock raus haben wollte und dann ging dieses ganze Ding erst ins Rollen.

Schau dir mal an, wie weit das heute geht.

Heute redet man drüber, dort in Zukunft Panzer und Rüstung zu produzieren.

Ich hab schon mit Ferdinand Piëch darüber geredet.

Äh, die deutschen DAX-Konzerne sind extrem unterbewertet durch diese ganzen Tarifverträge, durch diese ganzen Gewerkschaften, durch den ganzen Aufsichtsrat.

Wenn wir mit einer Holding irgendwie 'ne Struktur in Luxemburg zehn Prozent der DAX-Konzerne übernehmen könnten durch den hohen Anteil der passiven Aktionäre, die kein Stimmrecht haben, könnten wir so versuchen, die Regeln zu ändern und so die Bewertung von BASF, VW und so weiter verdoppeln." Das bespricht er mit dem Epstein, so privat, weil das war 'n geheimer Plan, wo er gesagt hat: „Hey, top secret", er flüstert auch, weil das ja, der, der versucht ja, deutsches Aktienrecht quasi auszuhebeln, damit er die Bewertung erhöht und er sagt: „Das Problem ist, sind diese ganzen", und da sagt der Epstein auch: „Das Problem ist in Deutschland, du kannst die Leute nicht so einfach feuern."

It will replace MEB and PPE across Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche.

Rivian's technology won't wait that long because the prototypes are already on the roads right now.

There's Audis and Volkswagens and Scouts already doing cold weather winter testing.

I think the first one is the 20k.

id1 and so that's what we'll see on the meb based platform with all of the rivian influence meanwhile volkswagen has chinese developed technology in production as well its electronic architecture with xpeng is in cars like the id unix 07 and that took 18 months to develop it's the car's computers and software It's not battery platforms and things like that.

And is it the same quality as the studio? No, but it's the acceptable quality today where the lighting is good.

It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, I'm not putting out like, you know, in the middle of an earthquake in the back of a Volkswagen or something, but there are tools out there that can make us all look fairly good inexpensively.

Yeah.

You mentioned customers and it's been rattling in my head because I think about this so much.

There were no high-speed trains or freeways at that time.

But we already had Volkswagen in-country for a long time.

And the The customers who used to buy Buick, in those days it was considered a luxury car, their expectations were different.

Their drivers would sit in the back.

For example...

Imagine that mom promised the classic Volkswagen van to one child, while dad promised it to another.

If the estate documents only say that vehicles should be divided equally, well, you've created a potential conflict.

The same can happen with family jewelry, artwork, a grand piano, photo albums, collectibles, or sentimental heirlooms.

But there's a lot of creative stuff.

Sounds like I'm picturing old Volkswagens.

Yeah.

Old diesel Volkswagens.

I

was picturing the old station wagon, but I don't know.

It amazed me that the people hadn't been immediately aware of that.

Volkswagen has announced that it's going back to more normal controls, sort of buttons and slides and whatever.

Because there's a big reaction against these touchscreens.

I mean, I remember once I had a BMW and before I could drive it away, I had to actually go through 18 different functions in order to turn things off that I didn't want on and to set things the way I wanted them set.

It competes with things like the Tiggo

4, the Haval Jolion, the BYD Atto 2 along the way.

But look, it presents, it's got almost a little bit of the Volkswagen look at the front of the old Beetle.

Do you know the sort of lights that sloped back a bit? Yeah, it does have a little bit of that.

They just, there's no market.

And what really opened my eyes was the Dieselgate thing, the Volkswagen scandal in 2015.

Yes.

Yeah.