Emrullah Karaca checks hydraulic valve blocks at his work place at the Continental Automotive Technologies' plant in Gifhorn, Germany, on April 23, 2024. — AFP picGIFHORN . May 6 — Emrullah Karaca has made brakes for the past 20 years, but he is now learning to assemble heat pumps instead, as the Continental factory where he works in northern Germany is slated to close.
Facing up to the double shock of the end of combustion engines and rising competition from China, European suppliers like Bosch, ZF and Webasto have all announced cuts — which have piled up to the point where the issue has cast a shadow on the forthcoming EU elections.Brussels has promised to do more to boost the domestic car industry and tackle unfair competition from cheaper Asian rivals.
“Brakes or heat pumps, it’s all the same to me,” said Karaca, whose two parents both worked for Continental at the factory. “If today you need 100 people to produce a normal motor, then with the electric motor you only need 10,” said Jutta Rump, a business professor at Ludwigshafen University. In Germany, one in three companies in the sector is planning to move part of its production abroad in the coming years to cut costs, according to a study by the German carmakers association VDA.The plant closure takes with it a whole network of local suppliers, whose workers staged a six-day strike in March to get better redundancy terms.