00:00I think it's probably one of the most pressing issues right now, particularly for the automakers.
00:05And you can get a sense of that by just how strongly German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has
00:10come out against that EU plan to introduce tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
00:15Scholz himself talks to those business leaders and he knows what they're thinking.
00:20He has said that Germany is against these tariffs because they would hurt Germany.
00:25He said trade wars and protectionism are detrimental to the country, and as a country they value
00:33open trade with the entire world.
00:36And that he said Germany doesn't need the best tariffs, but what it needs is the best
00:40vehicles and the best technology.
00:42So in other words, his view and the Germans' view is that the way to compete with Chinese-made
00:48electric vehicles is not through tariffs, but in order to try and compete with the technology.
00:53We also got an interesting update I think today which I wanted to share because we heard
00:57from one of the biggest car dealership owners in Germany.
01:00He owns around 36 dealers across the country, one of the real leaders.
01:04And he has predicted that Chinese-made electric vehicles in the long term could make up around
01:0815% market share here in Germany.
01:11He said there's really a big effort underway for them to try and make their cars attractive
01:16to German consumers.
01:17Right now they have a market share of about 1.1%, but in his view he's saying that it's
01:23particularly Japanese brands and also Volkswagen as mass consumer products that really are
01:29facing some stiff competition from the likes of BYD, NIO and Xpeng.
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