iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 7h

For the new strategy to work, an average Porsche would need to cost around €40,000 more. I did the math in my newsletter. It also shows why Porsche is only going halfway back to its roots: germanautopreneur.com/p/porsche-str…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 7h

The Porsche 911 alone sold around 52,000 cars in 2025. Ferrari, Lamborghini and 4 other luxury brands sell fewer than 50,000 a year combined. Porsche's new CEO spent 8 years at Ferrari and wants fewer cars at higher prices. I don't see how that works. Porsche is far too big for that niche.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm Berlin time I break it down in my newsletter: how Porsche went from a record year to a crisis in 2 years, and how much more a Porsche would need to cost. Free: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Porsche wanted to kill the combustion engine. Now Porsche desperately needs it back. In 2022 the goal was more than 80% EVs by 2030. Then profit dropped 93% in 2025. Now the new boss says: “The 911 will never be electric.” Will that save Porsche?

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The full story is out now in my newsletter: why the jobs won't come back this time, and how VW and Mercedes cut jobs without layoffs. Free: germanautopreneur.com/p/germany-aut…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Germany is losing 41,000 car jobs a year. And it shouldn't save any. Management and the works council agree the jobs will go. Nobody's debating where new work will come from. Germany needs the people now stuck at the big automakers. In jobs that aren't really needed anymore.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm Berlin time I break it down in my newsletter: how many more jobs will go, and whether you should take the severance package. Free: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Mercedes will pay you half a million euros to quit. And if you don't take it, things get really unpleasant. Germany's auto industry is now losing more than 3 times as many jobs a year as it did between 2019 and 2024. Where's this heading?

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The full story is out now in my newsletter: how Huawei made its comeback after the US blacklist. Free: germanautopreneur.com/p/huawei-car-…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Europe kicked Huawei out. Now Stellantis wants to bring it back. In May 2019, the US put Huawei on a blacklist. Less than 2 weeks later, Huawei set up a car unit. Now Stellantis reportedly wants to rescue Maserati with Huawei's technology. Cars could be its way back into Europe.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm Berlin time I break it down in my newsletter: why Donald Trump almost destroyed Huawei, and how it quietly became a power in the car industry. Free: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Everyone says you can't trust this company. I've been there. Huawei doesn't build a single car of its own. Yet in 2025, its alliance with 5 Chinese carmakers sold almost as many cars in China as Tesla. And now reports say it's going to rescue a historic European car brand.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I talked to the managing director of Catena-X for 2 hours. The full story is out now in my newsletter. Free: germanautopreneur.com/p/catena-x-ex…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Elon Musk banned one thing at Tesla. Working like the old carmakers. Someone needs something from another department. So they ask their manager, who asks their manager, who asks the head of the other department. And the answer takes the same route back.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm Berlin time I break it down in my newsletter. What Elon Musk says about this way of working, and why data still moves between companies by Excel and email. Free: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

German carmakers still work like it's the last century. The same part has one name in engineering and another in purchasing. And sales calls it something else again. For a long time, that was fine. The competition had the same problems. Until a new generation showed up.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Out now in my newsletter: where Mercedes, BMW and VW rank, and whether software really matters as much as everyone says. Free: germanautopreneur.com/p/gartner-dig…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The electric car is destroying the German car industry. Just not the way everyone thinks. The combustion engine kept new carmakers out for decades. The battery drained that moat. Mechanical engineering no longer sets you apart. The difference now comes from the software.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm Berlin time (12:00 UTC) I break it down in my newsletter. Where Germany stands in the Gartner Digital Automaker Index 2026, and why you can't buy your way through this shift. Free: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"I don't need all the gimmicks. I want to get from A to B." I hear that a lot in Germany. Software decides the 3 things the German car industry struggles with most: cost, development time and adapting a car to different markets. Germany still hasn't understood that. PS: The image is AI-generated

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The full breakdown is out now in my newsletter. Why Germany was never competitive at building cars, and what all of this has to do with Nokia. Read it here for free: germanautopreneur.com/p/volkswagen-…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We're too expensive. That's the standard German explanation for our car crisis. I don't buy it. The collapse happened in China, and VW builds its Chinese cars there. Chinese workers, Chinese wages, Chinese energy prices. Cutting costs in Germany won't sell one more car in China.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Tomorrow at 2pm Berlin time (12:00 UTC) I break the whole plan down in my newsletter. What it actually says, and whether VW survives this. Free, 5 minutes: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Volkswagen has decided to stop building its own car technology. It is cutting its own engineering by 35% to 50%. Software comes from Rivian and XPENG now, the AI that drives the car from XPENG. So VW still builds cars. It just doesn't develop the technology inside them anymore.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I write The German Autopreneur, a weekly newsletter on the global auto industry from Germany. germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Germany's biggest car market is now its biggest competitor. China has been the most important market for every German carmaker, and the numbers there have fallen for 6 years straight while the trend still points down. We were a little too sure about our technology lead.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I cover the transformation of the auto industry every week, from inside the German market. Free: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Only 1 of the 10 best-selling cars in China last month has a combustion engine. A Toyota, in 10th place. 8 of the 10 brands are Chinese, and no European brand made the list at all.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I write The German Autopreneur, a weekly newsletter on the global auto industry from Germany. germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Battery, software and AI are about to be 80% of what a car is worth. Germany is weak in all three. For a hundred years the combustion engine was the hard part, and we were better at it than anyone. Then the hard part moved. What VW is good at no longer carries the value.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The full breakdown is out now in my newsletter. Why the truck market falls faster than the car market, and whether Europe can still win this round. A free five-minute read: germanautopreneur.com/p/china-elect…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

China was never only after our car market. More than 15 years ago it started building the whole battery supply chain, from the mine to the finished cell. Today China controls about 80% of that chain. And everything going electric needs batteries. That was the clever move. And trucks are next.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Tomorrow I break the whole thing down in my newsletter. Why the truck market can fall faster than the car market, and what chance is left for Europe. A free five-minute read: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

What China did to the car market is happening again. This time with trucks. 9 of 10 electric trucks sold worldwide last year were sold in China, and a Chinese one costs about 100,000 euros less. I asked a truck expert about the quality. His answer: "That's a bit of the old arrogance talking."

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The full breakdown is out now in my newsletter. Why more hours miss the point, and what Mercedes actually needs instead. A free five-minute read: germanautopreneur.com/p/mercedes-40…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Mercedes says it found the real reason for its crisis: its own employees. The board wants everyone to work more for the same pay. But the workers didn't cause this. The real fix is much bigger: Mercedes has to become a software company, which no old industrial giant has ever done.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Tomorrow I break the whole thing down in my newsletter. What's really going on at Mercedes, and where it goes from here. A free five-minute read, from someone who spent 10 years there. germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Mercedes just told its workers to work more for the same pay. 20,000 protested and want their CEO gone. I worked there almost 10 years: more hours won't fix Mercedes, they'll make it worse. The problem is the culture. A former boss even called HQ a "Bullshit Castle."

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I broke down the full story in my newsletter: how hard China's crash is hitting German brands, and why China triggered it on purpose. Out now, free, 5 minutes: germanautopreneur.com/p/china-car-m…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

German EVs finally got good. For Chinese buyers, they're still dumb cars. China's best-seller in June was a Tesla Model Y. The most expensive car in the top 10. Chinese buyers still buy foreign cars. Just not dumb ones. Smart means software and AI. German brands hold 1.6% of that market.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Tomorrow I break down China's car market in my newsletter: how hard the crash is hitting German brands, and why China triggered it on purpose. Free. 5 minutes. germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

The world's largest car market is crashing. German brands are getting hit hardest. China's car market shrank 20% in H1 2026. Same 6 months: record exports, record EV share. This isn't a collapse. It's a shakeout. And I don't think China stumbled into it. It engineered it.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I told CNBC VW's overhaul wouldn't be decided that day, just the start of a fight. That night the board voted it down, 12 to 7. Battery, software and AI are now up to 80% of a car's value. That's the race Germany is losing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcKYDvNtOrk

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I wrote the whole thing down: the full VW story and the 3 scenarios for how it ends. Out now, free: germanautopreneur.com/p/vw-crisis-b…

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Volkswagen could make Chinese car technology mainstream in Europe. Overnight. In China, VW builds cars with Xpeng. Now it reportedly wants to sell them in Europe. Chinese tech, German logo. Xpeng already sells in Germany. Buyers will figure it out. Then they'll buy the original.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Tomorrow I break down the full VW story in my newsletter: the 3 scenarios for how it ends, and why I expect a different ending than Germany's top economist. Free. 5 minutes. germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Germany's top economist says BYD will probably buy Volkswagen. Right now at VW: 100,000 jobs at risk, plants on the line, whole divisions for sale. I don't think a takeover is how this ends. I see a scenario nobody is talking about yet.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

There's no longer 1 Volkswagen. There are 3. One in Germany builds the car we know. One builds the new car for the West in the US, with Rivian. One builds it for China, with Xpeng. Germany makes its money on the car of yesterday and builds the car of tomorrow elsewhere.

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Philipp Raasch @philipp-raasch.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Tomorrow I break it down: who's actually winning the car race, and why 2035 won't change it. Free, weekly, from Germany: germanautopreneur.com/subscribe

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