Can we talk about Germany without mentioning cars?
After reading “The Atlas of Economic Complexity and Find Germany,” I found it to be very interesting that Germany is ranked number 3 in the exporter ranking. To be more specific, what caught my attention was how exportation of cars, in 2021, made up 6.77% of the total exportations of Germany, representing $137B in gross export.
When considering why Germany is one of the leaders when exporting cars, it is important to understand the history of the relationship between Germany and cars. Germany has always been essential in the improvement and development of breaking through technologies in the auto industry. Besides germans arguing that Karls Benz was the one who invented the car, Karl Benz and Nicholas Otto developed the four-stroke combustion engine in the 1970s (figure #1), which works by converting chemical energy from gasoline into mechanical energy. This development led to Germany leading the exportation of cars as the country was the one with the latest technology in the auto industry.
Said past relationship still reflects on Germany’s market when it comes to car exportation. In 2022, Germany was the country that exported the highest dollar value in cars (US$155.1B), followed by Japan (US$87.2B) and the United States (US$57.9B) — which shows that Germany is by far leading the ranking in terms of dollar amount.
When thinking about the future of the German car industry, it is important to consider the trend of increasing the production and selling of electric cars. At first China and the United States started leading this fast-growing industry; however, Germany has been expanding its production, so in the future, I do believe we can expect to see Germany leading the board once again.
In conclusion, car production has always been part of the history of Germany and in the future, it will not be different.
