“Tesla for the people? Opel’s secret plan”

Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann intends to turn the German car manufacturer into a pure e-car brand by 2030, Michael Freitag reports on Manager Magazin’s website. Neumann has been working on the transformation since before deliberations by Opel’s US-owner GM to sell the brand to French competitor PSA surfaced earlier this week, Freitag writes. The parent company regarded Neumann’s plan as a possible way of securing the traditional car brand’s survival, he explains. But Neumann’s hopes could be dashed as Opel may lose access to GM’s new e-car development platform, Freitag writes. Neumann even considered splitting the brand up into a conventional and an e-car manufacturer, similar to the split of German utilities E.ON and RWE into conventional and renewable energy companies, according to Manager Magazin.

Read the article in German here.  

For background, read the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.