Duesmann takes his foot off the accelerator

The head of Audi Duesmann has just expressed a in favor of speed limits on motorways and Sundays on foot as in the seventies. 100 km/h on motorwayssuch as during the oil crisis of the 1970s.

And plus, one handful of car-free Sundays a year. In a recently published interview, Audi boss Markus Duesmann spoke in favor of these measures in response to the current situation and the need to save money.

For any racing driver and ex (happily converted) motor enthusiast like myself, offerings like this get the blood boiling at first. It’s tempting to ask, “Has he gone mad?”

But if you read on, you notice a foresight that makes you change your mind – and feel ashamed. No, he’s not crazy, in fact he’s thinking better than many of us. He understood that the world is changing.

And that means much more than a probable recession and the consequent decline in purchasing power. On the contrary, a new era is dawning in which the old European values, and indeed the old German values, are making a comeback: consistent quality, meaningful sustainability, respect for resources and responsible action.

The era of the horrible “greed is good” finally seems to be over. After all, that never meant much more than “A little more to me, a little less to you.” And there’s nothing more antisocial than that. That is why the wake-up call of limited energy has come just in time. Yes, we have all heard the alarm bells of meteorological global warming and political climate cooling towards another cold war.

For this reason it also makes sense to adopt measures that make us all understand that we have to save money. After all, saving means being together. And being together means being united. Unity makes us strong. And strength wins.

That’s why, dear readers, the title of this column is a bit crazy. Because Duesmann is right. So let’s take his ideas seriously.

This column is edited by Christoph Erni, founder and CEO of Juice Technology AG, a Swiss manufacturer of charging stations and solutions. He’s always had a practical bent, so much so that he dropped out of school shortly before his baccalaureate to take a business administration course at university, then transitioning into IT soon after. But that wasn’t enough for Christoph Erni: he wanted more! About 20 years ago he founded his own management consultancy, Erni Associates AG.

In 2014, noticing the lack of suitable charging solutions, he decided to enter the manufacturing sector and founded Juice Technology AG. In its first year of business, the company secured the pole position in this segment with the 22 kW Juice Booster 1 portable charging station, and it has remained there ever since.

Christopher Ernifounder and CEO of Juice Technology