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It’s still dark outside, but Helmut Ruhl (55) is wide awake. We meet the CEO of Amag, Switzerland’s largest automobile importer, in the largest meeting room of the headquarters in Cham ZG.
Mr Ruhl, the Geneva International Motor Show starts in four weeks. Are you going there?
Helmut Ruhl: Now GIMS is being remastered after many years and of course I love watching it.
With pleasure or sadness?
With pleasure and with the hope that it can establish itself as a major international act again.
Like others, imported brands of VW Group and Amag are not represented. Is there a problem for Amag?
GIMS is one of the largest international auto shows. In fact, for me he was the best in the world as an image bearer for Switzerland. However, for us as importers, local trade fairs such as Auto Zurich are more meaningful as sales fairs.
As Amag, were you planning to open an exhibition in Geneva?
We are there with a few Amag classic exhibitions. However, as a Swiss importer, we are not in a position to participate in an international fair.
With BYD and MG, two Chinese brands are taking advantage of the gap in Geneva. Are you worried about them starting in Switzerland?
Chinese brands are seizing every opportunity to attend trade fairs and participate in sports sponsorships. From my perspective, there are only a few new competitors coming.
Just competitors or new partners for Amag?
We are only talking to one manufacturer; Volkswagen Group, whose strategy and product portfolio we firmly believe in. In 2023, we will increase our market share to 32.4 percent and to 35 percent in fully battery-powered vehicles. And this year there will be a fireworks display of the company’s all-electric cars, from the Audi Q6 E-Tron to the VW ID.7. That’s what we concentrate on.
At the end of the year, the federal government eliminated import duty exemptions for electric cars; Shouldn’t you add four percent to that?
Promoting electromobility would be by far the cheapest measure for Switzerland to meet its CO₂ targets. Manufacturers made major investments abroad; Switzerland would now need to support the expansion of electricity and charging infrastructure. So I would have preferred a different decision. But even with the new tax we will ensure we remain competitive.
Tesla reduced the price of Model Y by 3,000 francs. Will Amag react?
VW announced on Friday that it will launch new United special models with a price advantage of between 4,500 and 8,750 francs, depending on the model. We are also in a good position against Tesla thanks to new lease offers. Our electric cars will definitely continue to be a good choice.
Is this also an effort to further accelerate e-mobility?
Electromobility is not a guaranteed success. This year import duty causes a lot of uncertainty in the market; This was the reason for the electricity shortage that occurred last winter. I am hopeful that the Council of States and the National Council will approve the decree on the safe supply of electricity through renewable energies. If ambitious expansion targets for renewable energies are implemented, power outages will no longer be a problem. The only thing missing is a pricing solution for tenants and flat owners.
What is the biggest obstacle to the transition?
One factor is the purchase costs, the other is the question of whether you can charge it once a day without stress. If companies offer employees a charging option at work, they can drive home in the evening with a charged car and the company can differentiate itself in the increasing competition for workers. Last year we were able to supply large fleets of electric cars to leading Swiss and Liechtenstein companies such as Nestlé, Hilti and VZug.
Amag is fully committed to e-mobility; Isn’t this risky?
I am 100 percent convinced that electromobility, with all its advantages, will prevail. It is already much more sustainable than internal combustion engine technology: According to TCS, the CO₂ emissions of an electric car with a mileage of just under 50,000 km are lower than those of an internal combustion engine. The impact will become stronger as production becomes localized. The Volkswagen Group is currently building green-electricity-powered battery factories in Europe that create local value. Battery production still accounts for the largest share of an electric car’s CO₂ footprint. It will be greatly reduced.
How does Amag subsidiary Helion fare as a photovoltaics supplier?
We took over Helion more than a year ago to produce ourselves the electricity needed to run the electric cars we sell. Helion added PV systems with electricity generation for approximately 33,000 electric cars; This is almost double the number of electric cars we sold in 2023. Additionally, Amag Retail is building a Switzerland-wide fast charging network and with Clyde we offer a complete e-ecosystem that includes charging power as a subscription price. In fact, I am my own customer: Amag Retail buys PV electricity from private Helion customers who sell electricity at the Helion solar tariff and feeds it into the fast charging network. For example, electricity is produced in German-speaking Switzerland and charged in Ticino.
If there is snow on the roof, the PV system application still shows zero production.
There is no type of energy production that meets all needs. But the appeal of the Swiss energy system lies in the combination of wind energy and photovoltaics with hydropower. In winter, when the sun doesn’t shine or photovoltaics produce less, hydropower remains an important source of energy. In addition, nuclear power plants will continue to operate for many years. Of course, in the future, electric cars will also be suitable for storing electricity. And we’re investing in Synhelion, a company that will produce synthetic fuel from solar heat. The first production facility will start in Jülich, Germany, in the summer.
There are very few electric cars that can function as home storage devices. When will updates come to VW Group for the required bi-directional charging?
VW and Cupra versions with a 77 kWh battery and the latest software have been available since last year. Other models with the same components will arrive in the coming weeks and months. The ID.7 is also designed for bi-directional charging, and so are new products launching in 2024.
Prices of solar modules are falling – a sign of declining demand?
The market has become more competitive. The fear of power outages, which caused a large number of orders last winter, is now over. We have relatively stable demand, but we need to work a little harder to generate orders.
Panel manufacturer Meyer Burger wants to close a factory in Germany.
There is excess capacity in the solar energy sector, driven by China. And supply chains are working again. The US is protecting itself from very cheap solar modules from China; excess production goes to Europe.
Do you work with Meyer Burger?
We very much want to strengthen regional supply chains and also want to rely on European and ideally Swiss production for photovoltaics. I would be very happy if Meyer Burger could really stay in Europe, if Switzerland and Europe could establish a relevant photovoltaic industry again. In principle, Europe should master every future technology. We don’t have to do everything ourselves, but we should be able to do everything.
Why did Europe lose its former leadership in photovoltaics to China?
I lived in China for four years; The country is very strategic. They realized long ago that the future lies in renewable energy and that their technology is lagging behind Europe. For many years, China has built up the necessary industry in a very systematic way and now has a dominant and almost monopoly position in the field of photovoltaics.
Regarding e- or synthetic fuels: These have been criticized for being inefficient.
Yes, they are almost six times more inefficient than using electricity directly across the entire chain. But it makes sense if you’re producing e-fuel in a place where wind or solar energy can’t compete with farmland and the electricity can’t be used for other purposes. Although e-fuels are more energy inefficient.
This means: If you wait long enough, will you be able to continue running internal combustion engines thanks to e-fuels?
And then the electromobility cup will pass (laughs)? With the new Euro 7 standard, it is becoming increasingly expensive to meet emissions regulations, making combustion engines more expensive. At the same time, electric cars are also becoming cheaper. Once price parity is reached or prices move in favor of electric cars, fewer and fewer people will buy internal combustion engines. However, I am against banning internal combustion engines and am in favor of being open to technology so that customers can make their own decisions. Even if electrification accelerates as expected, there will still be around two million internal combustion engines in Switzerland in 2040. If we could run these internal combustion engines with e-fuels, Switzerland would have ten percent less CO₂ emissions.
At Audi, new models were delayed, while at VW, new launches experienced repeated teething problems. What was this?
Our industry is experiencing great change. And first of all, you need to be able to manage all these changes in a company with over 600,000 employees. It all starts with the business model: BYD, for example, has long been vertically integrated, from the battery to the finished vehicle. This was completely missing in the classic car industry. That’s why VW is now building its own gigafactories and pushing digitalization forward. Then the sales model also changes. We and our dealers have been preparing for this for a long time. With so many changes, everything never goes right. But I am very confident in myself.
Source: Blick
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
