Hello and welcome
to our new "Be a mover" talk. I’m Jörg Howe, part of the Daimler Truck community,
and I have a special guest today. Professor Helena Wisbert. Correct? Yes. Professor of Automotive Economics and
for almost a year also Director of the Center for
Automotive Research in Duisburg. The professorship is in Wolfsburg,
Ostfalia University, the Center for
Automotive Research is in Duisburg. How does that fit together?
How do you manage it? To make things even more interesting, I live
in Neuss near Düsseldorf. Yes, Niederrhein. That's right. I commute between three cities. That's right. And that? Isn't that a little bit
spread out, a little too complex. They complement each other very well, because I have a professorship
for automotive economics and the Center for Automotive Research. Of course, the content that we create
is also partially incorporated into the lectures. So it's a really good combination that
I've chosen. Okay. Now you came to
the topic of automobiles and innovation
for environmentally compatible solutions relatively early on. You actually studied business
administration. How did you happen to focus on
automotive economics? Very early. I started with my diploma thesis, so to speak,
that was back in 2008. In 2008, we were already talking about electric cars,
just like today. And in some cases I still hear today,
are they going to win out? I'm often asked that question,
that is, in the passenger car sector. And the same questions
existed as early as 2008. So that’s a long time ago
and with the diploma thesis I’d just entered the automotive industry with the transformation of
the automotive industry as it were, wrote
my thesis on environmentally oriented product innovations
in the European automotive industry . I was at Volkswagen at the time
in Group Research and then remained there. Okay, wasn't it
rather hard for a woman to
get into this field? In a rather male-dominated
automobile company? So by starting as a diploma student,
later when I was in the doctoral program at Volkswagen, we
were a very mixed team, so almost the same number of men and women came from the university. But then, as things progressed, I was sometimes
the only woman in the meetings. So you're right. And was that a strange feeling or
do you feel that you were included? Or were you somehow kept a bit
at a distance? I was included.
It was all about the research. When you're dealing with electric cars,
do you have the feeling that things are moving forward or
that things are not moving forward at all? Or we are still at the point where
we actually don't have the infrastructure, but the cars
may already be there. How do you feel about the situation? So last year we had a boom year
for electric cars and now
this year we're slowing down a bit. We’re on something of a plateau, and the first hype has unfortunately died
down. Obviously, economic conditions are also not conducive now for these rather expensive
vehicles. And then there's the environmental bonus,
which has just been reduced. Those are a few points
that have now taken some wind out of the
sails of the whole thing. Exactly, so a lot still has to be done now to ensure
that these goals are achieved. Towards the goal of 15,000 electric cars
on German roads in 2030 roads, 1 million refueling points
by 2030 in Germany. So you have to come up with something. The German automotive industry has always been way out in front
when it comes to combustion engines. You have to honestly
say technology is tops, but you also have to talk about prices. Is this lead still there or
is China slowly overtaking us? So the German automotive industry really
has to get moving to avoid being
overtaken by the new competitors because at the moment the success of the
German automotive manufacturers is
still based on combustion engine vehicles, and we see it in markets
where more electric cars are already being sold, especially in
China. China is the world’s largest automotive market and the world’s largest
automotive market for electric cars. We can see that the market shares have gone to the
new competitors. And now it’s really important
to speed up the pace. If you look at
battery technology, who has the lead
worldwide at the moment? Is it China,
America, Korea, Japan, Germany? Who, so to speak,
is a leader in battery technology? From a cost perspective,
those vehicle manufacturers who control the entire value chain
. In other words, the Chinese vehicle manufacturers.
BYD comes from the battery sector,
they are familiar with it, but Tesla as well,
because they have also intensified their focus on this area. But of course, the German car manufacturers,
who are now picking up the pace and building their own battery cell production
and are also gaining more control over this large cost factor. Then there’s the Inflation Reduction
Act in the USA, which says come to us if it’s environmentally friendly technology
for the future. We'll finance 50% of your investments. Are there counter-developments in Europe
or even in Germany to bring the technology
here, to keep it here? So in Europe there are now also
funding programs. A center for battery cell production is
to be established in Spain in particular. So Europe is now trying or
the EU is trying to make it more attractive to invest
in Europe. Do you think that this is successful? It has to be successful
because this strong dependence on different regions
is what needs to be alleviated
a bit. That’s critical to success,
in any case. If you look at trucks,
that's potentially a problem. When I want to drive with a battery
for heavy-duty distribution transportation, so that I
have a good payload from the batteries. Do you think it can still be
a success model to drive such specific types of trucks
with batteries? That is, for shorter distances? Yes, because you just said it. So the weight of the truck then increases
linearly with the range of the battery. That's in the nature of things. And today with the batteries
that are currently on the market, heavy-duty long-distance truck transportation,
that's not yet feasible today. Do you think that there's an alternative to batteries
for long-distance transportation? Is it hydrogen? The hydrogen fuel cell. Precisely. Precisely
because if that’s not the case, the problem is solely with the
power supply equipment. So, if you somehow drive south outside Germany,
where should that be built? And we're lacking tens of thousands
of parking spaces for trucks. And then to think about it,
okay, the downtimes have to be used somewhere
for charging. And of course, that takes
even longer with trucks. Where we're already reaching
to some extent an acceptance limit with cars. So that's really still a long way off. And then hydrogen
fuel cell technology, that’s the solution for this sector. What
conditions need to be met to make a hydrogen fuel cell
successful? Getting the costs under control. That's
still a major topic today. It’s twice as expensive a truck,
a truck with hydrogen fuel cells is twice as expensive as a conventional truck
and, of course, there's also the infrastructure. In other words, to be able to really refuel with
hydrogen. That’s critical for success,
to actually scale the whole thing up
and get it on the road. When I think about our own
history, we founded a joint venture, cellcentric, with Volvo Truck,
our toughest competitor. We want to build a factory in Weilheim
unter Teck. We've been messing around with the
approval processes for over two years. Do we even have a chance
in Germany if we have such lengthy approval processes to establish such future technologies
here in our country? Well, of course
that’s also a bit of the problem, that is to say, creating the
prerequisites, which must be achieved
politically, for example, reducing the red tape and bureaucracy involved. We don't only see it
with hydrogen fuel cell technology, we also see it
in the power supply equipment. So until the whole thing
has been set up and it’s been approved, that simply takes too long. But that’s
an idiosyncrasy in Germany. But is it also the
task of the industry to say okay, what's needed to provide the whole thing
competitively here, so to speak, to go over to the VDA? Do you think that the VDA is the right
lobbying group to press ahead with that? Yes, definitely. I sometimes have an issue with it,
I have to say honestly. I think the history of the VDA, which has Matthias Wissmann,
former transport minister as boss, then in the meantime
somebody from the automotive industry who then said during the IAA that
he no longer wanted to hold this position. And then Hildegard Müller took over. You then felt that there was a new
momentum again. But really to the point where
you say yes, but now it’s time to get going. I don't see it at the moment. Or am I looking at it wrong? Yes, that's perhaps a matter of opinion. I see it differently. So I can already see
that with a certain pressure and then also intensity that it is moving forward,
and also pressure is being exerted so that these prerequisites
are being met. Because we see it in the passenger car sector. In the truck sector, we don't see it so intensely yet,
but in the car sector we see very clearly that the competition
is really building up pressure there now. And, of course, there really
is a need for action and I think all the players
have understood that by now. When you're dealing with your students, do you
have the feeling that they have an awareness for the future,
that there has to be a change to alternative drives, to CO2 neutrality, to mobility,
and that they may also have to be ready to
accept restrictions. Is this, so to speak, the mindset
of the new students who are there? So there are two directions; on the one hand, the students
who say sustainability is a trend, and I have the choice when
buying a car or deciding on mobility
to include sustainability as a criterion
or not. So this urgency that
climate change really requires a rethink is not there for
half of the students. That's a decision, so to speak. Is it important to me or not? And the other group that says I question
whether I really want to drive my own vehicle or whether I
will use mobility somehow differently, or whether I will use other mobility
services because the idea of sustainability is
important to me because it's urgent. So there are these
two different directions. If you look at the blockade campaign of the last generation,
do you sympathize with it? Sympathy for the cause
but not for the implementation. Unfortunately, that's because it has had the opposite effect. So it is precisely these road blocks
that were supposed to reach the mainstream and win people over
by advocating for environmental protection and climate protection, and these actions
have had the complete opposite effect. So if anything counterproductive? That is counterproductive. Yes, the method
is very counterproductive. What kind of feedback do you get from
your students about these activities? We discussed it. At the beginning, these campaigns
had not yet happened. They have become more and more extreme. And at the beginning there was still a part who said: Yes, that will wake people up or shake them up, we think
that’s good. But
this sympathy has decreased
more and more. So if something happened in the last few months, there was only head shaking. Although
it’s actually due to the age structure, there are many of them who are there
as a last generation. Taken literally,
it means that something can still be changed. I do not
hope it's the last generation. The last generation before ... Yes,
of course. I have to come back to hydrogen. We always say that hydrogen as a fuel will only be available
in the future if there is enough green hydrogen. What do you think of that? That's right. That is a precondition. I often forget to say it
because it’s the foundation, because we want to
move towards CO2-neutral mobility , we want to move toward
CO2-neutral transportation. And of course, that can only be done with green hydrogen,
that is, based on green electricity. Which we cannot produce in Germany;
hydrogen production will therefore probably be here,
there are now these programs, but that's of course the
challenge. I think of the power lines
that are to go from north to south because in the north we basically have enough
green hydrogen from wind energy, but we sell it abroad
partly because we cannot bring it down
via the pipeline systems. That's right. What do you think about the possibility say
from Saudi Arabia or Morocco, then hydrogen in liquid form
to be transferred to Germany? Yes, the market price will then
decide where
an attractive price is actually possible. In these regions, hydrogen will probably be more affordable
to produce than here in Germany , but the market will then decide which region will lead the way. Thinking about the truck situation, do you
think that we will still have so many trucks or many more
on the road in the coming years? Or will more go by rail? How can you
imagine that now in your forecast? So at the moment we are increasingly
shifting to truck transportation, and in the coming years,
I don't see this development going unchecked over the next ten years. So it will continue to develop in this way
because rail transportation takes time until the infrastructure has been built up. We see in Germany, that it takes much longer
and by then the hydrogen
fuel cell trucks will be on the road. And is the CO2-based toll actually a vehicle
for bringing more environmentally friendly vehicles onto the road? So with the toll concept, it
must be a comprehensive solution. We can't implement a toll concept
in individual countries. That would then
lead to unfair competition. So that’s why, throughout Europe, sure,
but that’s a mammoth task, that’s why: toll is based on an idea. Great idea,
but difficult to implement. Now we have relatively
many vehicles in Eastern Europe, freight forwarders who are always pushing into Central Europe,
also because of the financial situation with regard to drivers and so on. From your point of view
with the EU, is there somehow a solution to balance out this pay gap
and to let people transport under equal working conditions,
so to speak. Do you see the difficulty? So there are too few
truck drivers, it’s getting more and more volatile. But that's not a task
for policy, because it makes the whole thing more appealing. So I see it as difficult to intervene
in the market. Do you think, for example,
that higher salaries play a role here? In the USA, we now have UPS,
where drivers receive $170,000 per year. That will shortly be the case. Will there then be
a highly paid truck driver in the future? So something has to be done,
it has to be more attractive. And clearly, definitively
and also from the working hours, and so today we were five hours on the road to you
and that’s really true. Yes, of course, the framework conditions are
somehow becoming increasingly difficult. With many construction sites and, of course,
with the frequencies that are on the roads. If you had a wish for the transportation
of the future, what would it look like? The transportation of the future. The van or transportation? The van. So let’s say. Yes, so CO2 neutral in any case,
but with the same dynamism. Same performance as we know it today. And when we look at local transport
systems, is it easier to flip the switch
to CO2 neutrality, so to speak? Yes, because the trucks
or the vans, the buses , can always drive back to the home
base, where they can charge. And that’s why it’s easy, of course,
and we're already seeing it, and that’s really an advantage
for the cities, that is, the silent buses that are traveling around. That’s good, that’s good. Good, I have another
favorite topic that I finally have to put to you: Overhead lines, systems. There is a test route near Frankfurt
that is currently being extended. I never see trucks driving
there. In my home state of
Schleswig Holstein, there's also one that is making local residents crazy
because the wind causes the power lines to vibrate
and high-frequency sounds to be emitted. And here in the Murg valley, there is also a test route that nobody
wants any more. Is such a catenary system dead,
is it a dead end? I think, yes, because this structure is exactly
what we need to install first. We don't have the time either. Therefore it's about
achieving the EU’s climate goals. And if we have to build
it up everywhere we’ll surely end up in the woods. So from my point of view, that's not a
solution that can now be put on the
road in the next five years and save the world. Nevertheless, are you optimistic for the
future that things will get better? CO2-neutral. Yes. Because we
have a high level of innovation in Germany, in the automotive industry. And there are good concepts on the way. They now have to be scaled up,
they have to become cheap or cheaper. But that will
come over the next few years. Good, I wish you
all the best for your future in the automotive industry
and in research and teaching, and I would be pleased if we would meet again
in the foreseeable future. And you would tell us a little bit about
how you fared and how you have progressed in university and
technical matters. Thank you very much for participating. Thank you very much for having me. It was fun. I would also like to thank our dear colleagues
and friends for watching. That was the "Be A Mover" talk for today. It was about CO2-neutral
transportation, about the difficulties that lie ahead of us. And we had a very knowledgeable interview partner, and I will say it
again, with Professor Helena Wisbert.
Thank you, and until next time.