Repurposing Europe’s Automotive Engine
In short
Europe's car engineers have skills to spare and nothing to aim at
Few at George Georgiadis and Skander Garroum's table expected the carmakers to recover, so the talk turned to what their engineers should build instead.
A Chinese supplier that has made fridge magnets for twenty years will start making actuators for robots if actuators make money. Ask a big German tier-one supplier to try something new and it will say it has made one part for a long time, is very good at it, and anything else sounds risky. Skander Garroum of PROTOTYPE, who started a first company in China, has had both conversations many times, and at the Ripple on Europe's car industry the contrast kept coming back. Europe has the talent, several participants said. It is short of ambition and of money willing to take risks.
George Georgiadis of Evercurious VC asked who believed the European car industry would recover and got half a raised hand. George worked at Volkswagen from 2011 to 2022, and by the end the group's staff in new production methods, tool shops and press shops had shrunk to around 300. The European giants are turning into integrators, George said. Volkswagen now takes software from Rivian and platforms from XPeng.
Most of the industry will die, said an investor at a German fund, because the carmakers stuck with combustion engines when electric vehicles were a foregone conclusion. The factories will still be repurposed, out of government fear of unrest and lost jobs. That is not the free market choosing Germany, the investor said, though not a bad thing either.
Aircraft from car parts
A founder building a car-sized aircraft said cars failed in Europe partly because the industry had no protection. Aerospace has it. Every aircraft needs a type certificate, and EASA and the FAA have kept China's COMAC out of Europe and the US while China accepts Western aircraft. The company reuses automotive battery cells, battery management and seats, and builds more like a car plant than a traditional aircraft maker.
The founder's numbers were stark. Volkswagen spent about 3 billion developing the ID.4 platform. A certified aircraft needs 250–300 million, and earns a 34% gross margin against 8% in cars. A plant making 5,000 of their aircraft would employ as many people as a car plant making a quarter of a million vehicles. Yet the carmakers are too stretched to look beyond their own problems, the founder said, even though the BMW logo is a propeller in a blue sky and the Mercedes star once stood for land, sea and air.
A founder who runs a small electric-vehicle factory said Europe loses if it competes with China on China's terms. Their company builds from scratch, integrates vertically and sells software and services on top. It buys wherever that pays. Its circuit boards are designed in-house and made in China, and its stamped steel wheels come from India. "It's never a China versus no China," they said. A company that keeps buying the same systems from Bosch and Continental will make the carmakers' mistakes. George agreed. Sovereignty is the new green premium, the Evercurious partner said. It helps a start-up raise money, but the product still has to compete globally.
It's just a lack of ambition all around.
Engineers with thirty years left
George asked about the engineers in their 40s who spent 15 or 20 years on combustion engines and have 30 working years ahead. The vehicle founder said their most productive employee is 46. Another voice pointed at the phones in everyone's hands, whose makers in China and South Korea lacked the skills 15 years ago. Talent is not the problem, this speaker said. Ambition is. A national aerospace strategy they had seen aimed only for tier-one supplier status, although four or five start-ups in that country want to build aircraft. "It's just a lack of ambition all around."
Capital got the same charge. An investor who runs their own investment company said many VCs, at least in Sweden, take six or even nine months to decide while founders put their savings at risk. Laid-off engineers could make good founders, the investor said, but not without money willing to take a stake.
Skander called retraining a market. People have to retrain themselves, though spaces and some funding help. One participant wanted more support, noting that ten years after Saab shut down, some of its former staff are still out of work. Another recalled Nokia closing its research centre in Denmark but keeping the building open for a while, so employees could start companies there.
A shopping list
Skander's favourite read each year comes from China's industry ministry, a list of 60 to 70 nationally important projects broken down into the technologies still missing. One entry wants a high-speed rail tunnel in Tibet. That needs spray concrete that sets below 10°C, so the list names two university teams working on it and the construction company that would buy it, and asks for someone to start the company. Most entries, Skander admitted, are boring automation and sensors. An engineer in southern Germany has no such document telling them what would win funding and a buyer.
Late on, a participant proposed a founder culture for experienced engineers, with AI making it easier than ever to start a company. One of the hosts, half joking, declared the problem solved, then made the case in earnest. Europe does not need 100 million new founders, only a few thousand more.
This Ripple was hosted by George Georgiadis (Evercurious VC) and Skander Garroum (PROTOTYPE) at The Drop 2026 on 16 September.