Being able to meet Duan Qingyi in Germany was a complete accident.

How big Germany is, how many people it is, plus Germany at this point, it's a mess. In this case, they can still meet, maybe the two really have fate.

But it's a pity that Zhou Fangyuan is not willing to think about this aspect of things now, he came to Germany this time, on the one hand, to accompany his family to watch the World Cup, on the other hand, it is also a simple inspection, to see if there are any good projects in Germany, can help the Yuanfang Group or something.

As a result, Zhou Fangyuan didn't make any valuable discoveries.

The most developed in Germany is, needless to say, must be industrial.

The Ruhr area is Germany's traditional coal and steel industrial region. Munich (where BMW is headquartered), Hamburg (one of Airbus's three passenger aircraft assembly centers), Stuttgart (where Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are headquartered), Wolfsburg (where Volkswagen is headquartered), Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, etc., are all important industrial towns in eastern Germany, and most of the new industries are concentrated in Munich.

Zhou Fangyuan read a data in his previous life, in 2018, the total output value of German industrial enterprises (excluding the construction industry) was 874.2 billion euros, accounting for 25.8% of GDP. In 2018, the number of industrial employment (excluding construction) was 8.335 million, accounting for 18% of the total domestic employment (46.2 million).

Such a strong industrial strength has made Germany one of the eight largest industrial countries in the world. Germany's main industrial sectors are electronics, aerospace, automobiles, precision machinery, equipment manufacturing, and military industry. German products are known for their excellent quality, leading technology and delicate workmanship, but the cost is high. Germany's industrial products are well-known in the world, and Germany is also the largest producer of automobiles in Western Europe.

Speaking of which, I have to talk about German cars, to be honest, if there is anything in Germany that Zhou Fangyuan can look at, it is really too much, but most of them belong to him, and others look down on him. Even if he wants to buy it, the German government may not be willing to sell it, and even if the German government is willing to sell it, he basically can't afford it.

On the other hand, in terms of automobiles, maybe there will be a chance.

German cars, as everyone should know, are really powerful, more than French cars.

To what extent does a cow beep?

Let's just say that Germany is almost the birthplace of modern automobiles, and it is also the country with the longest history of producing automobiles. Since the invention of the first automobile by Karl Benz in 1886, the German automotive industry has gone through more than 120 years of development. The development of the German automobile industry, like that of other countries in the world, has gone through four stages: "invention and experimentation", "continuous improvement", "rapid development" and "extensive application of high-tech". Moreover, each stage of development has always been closely linked to major events in the political, economic, social and cultural fields of Germany.

In the 70s of the 19th century, when the second wave of industrial revolution in the West was rising, the Germans seized the decades after the unification of the Second German Reich in 1871 and created a miracle at the end of the 19th century: Germany completed the industrialization road that the British took more than 100 years to complete in just 30 years, so that Germany became one of the world's industrialized powers.

In the early period of the rise of the automobile industry, due to the invention of the internal combustion engine and the birth of the automobile, automobile factories in Germany sprung up one after another, and some manufacturers in other industries also turned to automobile production. In 1901, there were only 12 automobile factories in Germany, with only 1,773 employees and an annual output of only 884 automobiles, but by 1908, there were 53 automobile factories in Germany, with 12,400 employees and an annual output of 5,547 automobiles, which had increased several times as a whole. Before the First World War, the German automobile industry had basically formed an independent industrial sector, with more than 50,000 automobile manufacturing workers and an annual output of 20,000 vehicles, which was second only to the automobile output of the United States.

The seven years from 1923 to 1929 are known as the "golden twenties" of the German automobile industry.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Hitler put the construction of highways and the production of national cars, which had been planned during the Weimar Republic, on the agenda, and put the development of the automobile industry and related industries in a very prominent position. The attractive prospects of the automobile and the rapidly developing motorway network made the thirties once again the "golden age" of German car production. By the outbreak of World War II, Germany's automobile industry had a considerable foundation, and Daimler-Benz, Audi, Volkswagen and other automobile companies had formed a certain scale of production. Thus, the automobile has truly become one of the main carriers of product culture in the world for a long time after the 30s of the 20th century, laying the foundation.

After the outbreak of World War II, Germany was quickly embroiled in a full-scale war. Throughout World War II, Germany's automobile industry turned into a part of the military industry and served the war effort.

By the end of World War II, most of the car factories had been devastated and almost in ruins.

So it wasn't until the fifties that the German automotive industry really entered a period of rapid development.

In 1950, the Federal Republic of Germany produced 300,000 cars. With the rapid popularization of automobiles in China and the continuous improvement of automobile export competitiveness, automobile production has risen sharply, especially represented by Volkswagen's "Beetle" car, marking the beginning of the rapid development of the German automobile industry. In 1960, Germany's annual automobile production has reached 2 million, and in 10 years, it has increased by 5.7 times, with an average annual growth rate of 21%, and has since become the largest automobile producer and exporter in Europe.

From the sixties onwards, the automotive industry in the Federal Republic of Germany continued to grow at a high rate, and as a result of competition, there were more than 100 car manufacturers left, but production volumes continued to increase. Many modern technologies are widely used in the automotive industry, and automobile production has begun to enter a mature stage. After the reunification of Germany, the German automotive industry was constantly being restructured and reorganized. With the acceleration of European integration, the German automotive industry has begun to enter a new stage of development

In 1966, Germany's automobile production was surpassed by Fuso, ranking third in the world, and it has remained so until now. In 1971, the annual production of automobiles in Germany reached 4 million. Since then, due to the impact of the two oil crises and the basic popularity of automobiles in Germany, the momentum of German automobile exports has also slowed down, while the import volume has increased significantly, so that German automobile production has shown a trend of decline, hovering and low growth. Throughout the 70s of the 20th century, the output of the German automobile industry has been hovering between 3 million ~ 4 million vehicles. Throughout the 80s, Germany's automobile production has been fluctuating between 4 million ~ 5 million units. By the end of the 20th century, in 1998, Germany produced 5.7 million cars.

Since the end of the 20th century, the economic downturn in Germany has seriously affected consumer confidence, and domestic car sales have fallen sharply, with car sales in the German domestic market falling by 15% since 1999. The German automotive industry began to lie in crisis and entered an "eventful season". Since the late 90s of the 20th century, the most important event in the global automobile industry has been the wave of asset restructuring and mergers and acquisitions. During this period, the reorganization and joint mergers that occurred in the German automobile industry mainly included the merger of Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler, and the acquisition of Rolls-Royce and Bentley by Volkswagen and BMW.

The year before last, in 2004, the German automotive industry produced more than 13 million cars worldwide, accounting for 20.7% of global car production. Germany produced 5.57 million vehicles, including 5.2 million cars, exported 3.67 million and imported 1.14 million. The production of German brand cars overseas exceeded 4.22 million units. At present, the German automotive industry is dominated by five major companies: Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, BMW, Opel and the German subsidiaries of Ford Motor Company.

Due to the impact of the weak euro, after experiencing the glory of 2010 and 2011, a total of 6.54 million cars were sold worldwide in 2011, and the cumulative sales of cars in 2013 fell to 3.25 million, a decrease of 4.02% from 2012.

Since then, the German automotive industry has had to turn its attention to developing countries, such as China, Brazil and Russia, and only 10% of German auto parts companies still insist on making new investments in Germany. More than 26 percent of German component companies have already opened new plants in Eastern European countries. The German auto parts industry has set up more than 1,400 wholly-owned or joint ventures around the world. The parts industry is further concentrated, and the number of German parts companies will tend to decrease.

After decades of evolution, the world's automobile industry has basically formed the so-called "6 + 3" competition pattern, which can basically represent the entire automobile industry in the world in the future, because the sum of the automobile output of these enterprises has accounted for more than 95% of the world's total automobile output, of which the German automobile company is "2 + 1", accounting for one-third of the country.

In addition, the strength of German automobiles is not only reflected in a few automobile companies, in fact, above the six major car companies, there are three father-level enterprises.

They are Bosch, ZF and Continental.

As a mainstay of the automotive industry, Bosch has many legendary stories for more than 100 years, and it is difficult to tell them clearly in a few words. The production of high-pressure spark plugs solved the ignition problem of internal combustion engines at that time, thereby promoting the perfection of the engine, which can be said to indirectly promote an important process in the electrification era. With the passage of time, Bosch has also been developing new technologies, as long as it is about high-tech electronic technologies used in automobiles, Bosch patents cannot be bypassed. At present, Bosch's most well-known technology is ABS+EBD, ESP system, as well as the TCU of the gearbox and the gateway communication protocol of the major systems, both at home and abroad, are inseparable from Bosch's active safety system and communication protocol.

At present, as one of the world's top 500 companies, Bosch's main business is also quite extensive, from the original auto parts and systems, to household goods, consumer electronics, and even transportation engineering.

As one of the most complex components of a car, many car manufacturers have the ability to develop their own engines, but they may not have the ability to develop their own transmissions.

ZF Friedrichshafen AG, is also a Fortune 500 company, has a leading dimension in the transmission and steering technology of automobiles, is a partner and spare parts supplier in the global automotive industry, specializing in providing transmission, steering, chassis systems and other auto parts, for cars, buses, trucks and even ships and large construction machinery have a deep attainment. Many well-known automobile companies have adopted ZF's transmission solutions, such as Volkswagen, BMW, Audi, Alfa Romeo, etc., with rich technical reserves and stable customers.

Speaking of the German Continental Group, many people may be confused, but this company is really a century-old enterprise, and it is also one of the world's five largest parts suppliers, its most well-known Continental tires at that time, but as a multinational company, the main business of the German Continental Group is not tires, but in the car chassis and braking system. However, after acquiring part of Siemens' business in the early years, it focused on automotive microelectronics technology, shifting its business focus to body control modules, remote key fobs, immobilizers, instrument clusters, and unmanned driving. And with a large number of Siemens patented technology, Continental is also handy in manufacturing some high-precision sensors.

In addition to the developed vehicle industry, Germany also has such a strong auto parts industry as the backing for development, and it is not surprising that the automobile industry dominates the world.

In addition, there is a layer of cultural factors at work in the German automotive industry.

Due to the great influence of Prussian culture, Germany has formed a rational and obedient national culture. We can see this from the various stories we hear about Germans every day.

At the same time, since the automobile is an intensive manufacturing industry, creative thinking is important, but the characteristics of rigor and obedience are essential, or it is not an exaggeration to say that the characteristics that affect the survival of car companies. Because of the insistence on these characteristics, the German industry has gained the reputation of durability, pragmatism, reliability, safety and precision, so that "Made in Germany" is famous all over the world, and the automotive industry is the representative of German industry. Therefore, about 15 years of noisy Volkswagen "emission gate" incident, there is no doubt that the German up and down a cold sweat, people are not discussing "made in Volkswagen" but "made in Germany", the importance of the car to Germany can be seen.

Of course, Zhou Fangyuan hopes that he can get something from the German automobile industry, in fact, the life of German car companies is not too easy.

The rise of developing countries is invisibly equivalent to grabbing the original market for German automobiles, especially Huaxia, as a new industrial power, is already a situation that is rapidly catching up in all aspects. In the field of automobiles alone, although it is necessary to catch up and catch up, it may take a long time, especially in terms of high-end models and luxury cars, the gap between domestic automobile companies and several major German car companies is still quite large. However, in the low-end automobile market, at the level of low-cost cars that do not need so much high-tech and do not need such excellent workmanship, the competitiveness of Huaxia car companies is not weak, for example, a sales list in the previous life in 2018, Geely Automobile, which ranked first, has an annual sales volume of 1.5 million units, and the Great Wall, which ranks second, is also close to 1 million units.

With such crazy figures, this is not even a competition with German cars, but with global cars.

Although the low-end market is low-end, the output value is huge, and after having enough revenue, car companies can naturally increase research and development, and even penetrate into the mid-end and high-end levels. Therefore, the impact of the entire German auto industry is very large, now this is 06 years, the impact is not too strong, and so on in another ten years, the market will force these car companies to cut prices, and once the price is reduced, although the competitiveness is guaranteed, but the income can not be guaranteed, these old car companies will be more and more sad. So if possible, Zhou Fangyuan really wanted to bite a piece of meat hard, but he couldn't find a suitable entry point and the target of biting that piece of meat at the moment.