ABSTRACT
Germany is the chassis, body and engine of the European automotive industry. It is the world’s third largest car producer, after the USA and Japan. Within Europe, Germany is by far the largest producer (5.35 million passenger cars in 2005), as it produces more than twice as many cars as the second producer (France, 3.11 million) and the third (Spain, 2.1 million) together, resulting in a market share of 34%. The country is home to various leading car assemblers (see Figure 5.1), that contributed nearly half (48.8%) of the total gross net value added of all OEMs in the EU in 2002. Germany also houses a number of world-leading suppliers: Robert Bosch, Siemens VDO (recently sold to Continental), Continental, ThyssenKrupp and ZF Group are all ranked on the list of the 15 largest automotive suppliers in the world (based on returns in 2005). In Europe, the dominance of German suppliers is even larger: 9 of the 15 largest automotive suppliers in Europe are German, and German suppliers contributed 43.3% of the total gross net value added of all automotive suppliers in the EU in 2002 (IGM 2006a,b,c). Finally, the German automotive industry is a leading innovator, with over 3,600 patents registered in 2005; the German automotive industry accounted for 35% of all applications worldwide, which is more than any other country (VDA, 2006).
