German Association of the Automotive Industry

On Monday, the Commerce Minister Wang Wentao held a video call with the Mercedes-Benz chief executive Ola Källenius, who is also the president of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.

He separately met Hildegard Müller, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, and Mr. Wang asked Europe's carmakers to help settle the dispute.

Chinese manufacturers are expanding plans to build vehicles in Europe.

The plans have intensified ahead of the proposed European Commission's Made in Europe rules.

And if you know automotive manufacturing, you know scaling to that volume requires terrifying quality discipline.

You're dealing with IATF 16949 certification, massive VDA documentation, and full PPAP approval.

You simply cannot maintain statistical process control at 300,000 units a year.

if there is any uncontrolled randomness from part to part.

And marketing a whole industry to the public but also to politicians, to government and so on.

And so I started to work for the VDA, the German Automotive Industry Association.

which is representing all the German car manufacturers, all the German truck manufacturers, all the German suppliers in the car industry, but also the body and trailer manufacturers.

So the VDA has a very strong voice when it comes to automotive issues because it's manufacturers and suppliers at the same time.

And I worked there for a very long time, for more than 17 years.

Later, as a managing director, I was responsible for The IAA, for example, which moved from Frankfurt to Munich, was responsible for all this process.

I really appreciate it in Munich, the setup where you have the exhibition hall for the both technical audience and you also were present directly in the middle of the city and the brands exhibiting there.

So I think very good outreach also for the industry, which in any way says a very important voice in German politics, I would say.