The centerpiece of Mercedes-Benz’s 140th birthday party in January was a patent application filed in 1886 by an engineer named Carl Benz for a “vehicle with gas engine.”

今年1月，梅赛德斯-奔驰140周年庆的重头戏是一份工程师卡尔·本茨于1886年提交的"燃气发动机的车辆"专利申请文件。

The way Mercedes executives spoke of the handwritten document, which at one point was projected on a large wall on the company campus in Stuttgart, Germany, it might have been a sacred parchment. It not only certifies that Germany is the birthplace of the automobile but also helps explain why the woes of the country’s automakers — Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW — are a threat to more than just the German economy and the livelihoods of thousands of workers.

奔驰高管谈及这份手写文件时语气庄重，仿佛在奉读一卷圣典——庆典期间，这份文件一度被投影在德国斯图加特公司园区的一面巨大墙壁上。它不仅证明了德国是汽车的诞生地，也在一定程度上解释了，为何大众、奔驰和宝马这些德国车企的困境所威胁的不仅是德国经济和成千上万工人的生计。

The carmakers’ woes also threaten the national identity, rattling a fragile governing coalition and fueling support for far-right politicians.

这些车企的困境更是在动摇德国的国家认同，冲击着脆弱的执政联盟，同时助长了民众对极右翼政治人物的支持。

Germany’s automakers are struggling under the weight of American tariffs, Chinese competition and a rocky transition to electric vehicles. The gravity of the situation became clear this summer as Volkswagen executives discussed closing factories, canceling models and culling tens of thousands of jobs.

德国汽车制造商正在美国关税、中国竞争和向电动汽车艰难过渡的三重重压下苦苦挣扎。今年夏天，大众高管讨论关闭工厂、取消车型、裁减数万名员工，凸显出形势的严峻性。

The crisis raises questions about whether the German approach of balancing profits with job security by, among other things, giving workers a strong voice in management is capable of adapting to breathtaking technological change. Chinese carmakers churn out new models in 18 months or less, a fraction of the time most Western carmakers take.

这场危机引发了一个疑问：德国一直以来在利润与就业保障之间寻求平衡的方式——其中包括赋予工人在企业管理中较大的话语权——是否还能适应日新月异的技术变革。中国的汽车制造商推出新车型只需18个月甚至更短时间，大多数西方汽车制造商所需的时间则是其数倍。

Along with chemicals and machinery, autos are “one of three sources of German strength rooted in the 19th century in areas where German engineers made great strides,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank.

贝伦贝格银行首席经济学家霍尔格·施密丁表示，汽车与化工、机械并列为“德国三大根基产业，它们植根于19世纪，当时德国工程师在这些领域取得了重大突破”。

When the industry is changing rapidly, “German labor relations are a hindrance,” Mr. Schmieding said. “A modest downsizing you can discuss with your workers. When it’s a dramatic shift, that’s more difficult.”

施密丁说，在产业快速变化的时候，“德国的劳资关系反而成了障碍”。“适度裁员，你还可以跟工人协商。但如果发生的是剧烈转型，难度就要大得多。”

Ola Källenius, the chief executive of Mercedes, said Germany still possessed the skills that had allowed Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche units to dominate the high end of the market.

奔驰首席执行官康林松(Ola Källenius)说，德国仍然拥有那些曾让奔驰、宝马以及大众旗下的奥迪和保时捷称霸高端市场的技术。

奔驰首席执行官康林松（中）表示，德国工业受到高能源成本和高税收的拖累。

Speaking in January when the company unveiled the latest version of its top-of-the-line S-Class sedan, he said the car “has German origins, spirit, DNA, engineering skills, precision, quality thinking.”

今年1月，在公司发布最新款旗舰S级轿车时，他说，这款车“源自德国，拥有德国精神，德国DNA，德国的工程技术、精确性和品质理念”。

But he added that the design was the product of “a global team.” And he said the country was hurt by high energy costs and taxes as well as rules that made it difficult to lay off workers.

但他同时坦言，这款车的设计出自“一个全球化团队”之手，并指出德国正受到高能源成本、高税负，以及使企业难以裁员的法规的拖累。

“There’s a lot that needs to be done in Germany to improve competitiveness — or, I should rather say, Europe,” Mr. Källenius said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Stuttgart.

康林松在斯图加特总部接受采访时说：“德国——或者我更应该说，是整个欧洲——需要在许多方面采取行动来提升竞争力。”

When German companies expand or build factories, it is often in places like Hungary, China or Mexico. The number of cars produced in Germany has fallen 28 percent since 2016, according to the VDA, the German automakers’ association, putting the country well behind China, the United States, Japan and India. Germany could soon also be overtaken by South Korea and Mexico.

德国企业扩张或建新厂时，往往选择匈牙利、中国或墨西哥等地。德国汽车工业协会数据显示，自2016年以来，德国国内汽车产量已经下降28%，远远落后于中国、美国、日本和印度。德国的汽车产量甚至可能很快被韩国和墨西哥超过。

U.S. automakers may soon face similar challenges. For now, General Motors and Ford Motor are protected from Chinese competition by tariffs. But “we can’t expect to keep them out forever,” William Clay Ford Jr., the executive chair of Ford, said at an Axios event this month in Washington.

美国车企或许也将很快面临类似的挑战。就目前而言，关税壁垒令通用汽车和福特汽车暂时免受中国竞争影响。但“我们不能指望永远将它们挡在门外”，福特执行董事长小威廉·克莱·福特本月在华盛顿Axios举办的一个活动上说。

The German carmakers face an assault on two fronts. In China — the world’s largest car market — sales of foreign car brands are plummeting. And Chinese automakers are making big strides in Europe. In June, Chinese carmakers outsold Japanese carmakers in Western Europe for the first time, according to figures compiled by Schmidt Automotive Research.

德国车企正面临两面夹击。在全球最大汽车市场——中国——外国汽车品牌的销量一落千丈；而在欧洲，中国车企正取得长足进展。据施密特汽车研究公司数据，今年6月，中国车企在西欧的销量首次超越日本车企。

中国国有企业北汽集团持有奔驰近10%的股份，是这家德国公司的最大股东。

China was once a lucrative market for the Germans, accounting for 37 percent of Volkswagen sales in 2019. But after Chinese automakers learned how to manufacture cars through joint ventures with foreign carmakers, the tables turned.

中国市场曾是德国车企的淘金之地，2019年大众汽车全球销量的37%来自中国。然而，当中国车企通过与外国车企合资学会了如何造车后，局面发生了逆转。

BAIC Group, an automaker owned by the Chinese government, has become Mercedes’s largest shareholder, with a stake of almost 10 percent. Chinese companies like BYD and Geely Auto were quicker to develop electric vehicles that were heavily promoted by the Chinese government and are selling briskly in Europe.

中国国有车企北汽集团已成为奔驰的最大股东，持股比例接近10%。比亚迪和吉利汽车等中国公司更快地开发出电动车，而这些车型又得到了中国政府的大力推广，并正在欧洲市场热销。

The Germans took too long to offer appealing electric vehicles. Volkswagen sold 26 percent fewer cars in China in the first six months of the year compared with a year earlier, while Mercedes reported a 28 percent decline and BMW a 20 percent slump.

德国车企在推出有竞争力的电动车型上反应迟缓。今年上半年，大众汽车在中国的销量同比下降26%，奔驰下跌28%，宝马则下滑20%。

“Despite better products, we cannot match the cost and pricing of export models from China,” Oliver Blume, the Volkswagen chief executive, told employees this month.

"尽管产品不断改进，但我们仍无法与来自中国的出口车型在成本和定价上相抗衡，"大众首席执行官奥博穆(Oliver Blume)本月告知员工。

Mr. Blume expressed doubt that Volkswagen factories in four German cities were competitive, though he said there might be ways to avoid closing them by, for example, converting them for use by the defense industry.

奥博穆表示，他不看好大众在德国四座城市的工厂的竞争力，不过他表示，或许可以通过将这些工厂改造用于国防工业等方式，避免关闭。

Volkswagen’s labor representatives agreed in 2024 to cull 50,000 people from the company’s work force by 2030, through retirement and buyouts. With 657,000 employees worldwide, the company still has 50,000 more people than it needs, Mr. Blume said.

2024年，大众的劳资代表同意，到2030年通过退休和买断等方式将公司员工总数削减5万人。奥博穆说，大众在全球拥有65.7万名员工，仍然有5万人属于冗余人员。

Making such deep cuts is especially difficult at Volkswagen.

对于大众而言，如此大规模的裁员尤为困难。

Workers at the company, as is the case for all three German carmakers, hold half the 20 seats on the supervisory board, in line with the country’s laws. The boards oversee top management and can fire the chief executive. Shareholders also have 10 seats and name the chair, who can exercise a tiebreaking vote.

与三家德国车企的情况相同，依据德国法律，大众的工人在监事会20个席位中占据半数。监事会负责监督最高管理层，并有权解雇首席执行官。股东同样占有10席，并任命监事会主席——在票数相等时，主席可以行使决定性的一票。

But what’s unique at Volkswagen is that two of the shareholder seats are held by the State of Lower Saxony, which owns 20 percent of the company’s voting stock. The state, home to Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, almost always takes the side of workers.

大众的特殊之处在于，股东的10席中有两席由下萨克森州占据，该州持有大众20%的表决权股份，几乎总是站在工人一边。大众总部位于该州城市沃尔夫斯堡。

Olaf Lies, the prime minister of Lower Saxony and one of the state’s representatives on the Volkswagen board, said in a statement that he would not agree to any plan “that depends on factory closures as a supposedly simple solution.”

下萨克森州州长、同时担任大众监事会代表的奥拉夫·利斯在声明中表示，他不会同意任何“将关闭工厂作为所谓简单解决方案”的计划。

Historically, Volkswagen and its workers have found compromises in times of crisis, but cooperation has been strained recently.

从历史上看，大众和工人在危机时期总是能找到妥协方案，但近来双方的合作关系已经变得紧张。

“There is already an enormous loss of trust amongst the work force in the man who, in his early days as C.E.O., presented himself everywhere as ‘Olli’ and a ‘local lad,’” the Volkswagen Works Council, which represents workers, said of Mr. Blume in a statement.

代表工人的大众职工委员会在声明中谈到奥博穆时说：“在担任首席执行官初期，他到处以‘奥利’和‘本地小伙’的形象示人，如今员工已经对他产生了巨大的不信任。”

Candidates for the far-right Alternative for Germany have seized on the industry’s woes, promising to usher in a return to a heyday of German manufacturing. The appeal has helped the party attract voters in parts of Western Germany where the AfD is generally much weaker than in areas that were once part of Eastern Germany.

极右翼政党德国选择党的候选人抓住汽车工业的困境大做文章，承诺让德国制造业重返昔日的辉煌时代。这种吸引力帮助该党在原西德部分地区赢得了选民支持，选择党在这些地区的支持率通常远低于原东德地区。

The far left has also tried to exploit the crisis. This month, members of the German Marxist-Leninist Party distributed pamphlets outside the gates of an Audi factory in Neckarsulm, in southwest Germany, calling on workers to strike.

极左翼也试图利用这场危机。本月，德国马列主义党成员在德国西南部内卡苏尔姆的奥迪工厂门外散发传单，号召工人举行罢工。

The center-right chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has linked the industry’s problems directly to China. He promised to work with France and the rest of Europe to push back against the Chinese imports. The French carmakers Peugeot, owned by Stellantis, and Renault face similar problems.

中间偏右的总理默茨将汽车业的困境直接归咎于中国，承诺将与法国及欧洲其他国家携手，共同抵制中国进口。斯泰兰蒂斯旗下的法国车企标致和雷诺也面临类似困境。

“We are doing everything to stabilize the automotive industry again,” Mr. Merz said in an interview this month with the public broadcaster ZDF. “At the moment, that is the most difficult sector in Germany.”

默茨先生本月在接受德国电视二台采访时表示：“我们正在尽一切努力再次稳定汽车行业。目前，这是德国最困难的行业。”

德国总理默茨表示，他将与其他欧洲领导人合作，保护欧洲汽车工业免受中国进口汽车激增的冲击。

Automakers often complain that Chinese companies have an unfair advantage because they receive subsidies from their government. But Chinese automakers are also adept at equipping cars with features like rotating screens, fast-charging batteries and advanced self-driving systems at lower costs than Western carmakers.

车企经常抱怨，中国企业因为政府补贴而拥有不公平的竞争优势。但中国车企同样善于以低于西方同行的成本在汽车上搭载旋转屏幕、快充电池和先进自动驾驶系统等功能。

Much of the auto industry’s malaise “is due to wrong decisions and arrogance” in addition to increased competition from China, said Thorsten Benner, the director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.

柏林全球公共政策研究所所长托尔斯滕·本纳表示，汽车业大部分困境除了来自中国竞争加剧之外，也在很大程度上“源于错误决策和傲慢自大”。

Jörn Buss, a German who is head of Americas for the automotive and manufacturing group at the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, noted that Chinese companies also had problems. They lose money or earn modest profits because there are dozens of carmakers in China. Most of those companies have been making cars for only a few years, which means nobody knows if those vehicles will turn out to be reliable or durable.

理特咨询公司汽车与制造业务美洲区负责人、德国人约恩·布斯指出，中国企业自身也面临诸多问题。由于中国有数十家车企相互竞争，它们要么亏损，要么利润微薄。这些企业大多仅有短短几年的造车历史，这意味着没有人知道这些车辆是否可靠耐用。

“They haven’t made the errors yet that all the other guys have learned from over 50 years,” Mr. Buss said.

布斯说：“他们还没有犯过其他车企在50多年的时间里吸取教训的那些错误。”

The Germans still excel in at least one area: lavish marketing events. The party in Stuttgart celebrating Mercedes’s 140th birthday culminated in the unveiling of the S-Class sedan, which is made in Germany.

德国人至少在一个领域仍然表现出色：奢华的营销活动。奔驰在斯图加特举行140周年庆典以德国制造的S级轿车的发布作为高潮，这款车产自德国。

The car debuted in a livestreamed show featuring laser lights, drone cameras, a digital John Lennon and the real-life Roger Federer. It comes with an A.I.-powered screen the size of a small windshield, a glowing hood ornament and heated seatbelts.

这款车通过一场网络直播亮相，现场有激光灯、无人机摄像机，还有数字版约翰·列侬和现实中的罗杰·费德勒联袂亮相。新车搭载了AI驱动的超大尺寸屏幕、会发光的车标和加热安全带。

But the seatbelts became a sort of national joke in German media, mocked as an example of how Mercedes is falling behind on the whiz-bang innovations the Chinese have become so good at.

然而，这条加热安全带却在德国媒体上沦为一个国民笑话，被调侃为奔驰在中国车企已娴熟掌握的酷炫创新竞赛中落后的例证。

“These German companies will survive,” said Tom Narayan, lead autos analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “But they will likely be smaller companies than they are today.”

“这些德国公司会活下去的，”加拿大皇家银行资本市场首席汽车行业分析师汤姆·纳拉扬说，“但它们很可能会是比今天的规模要小的企业。”