Volkswagen announced a “Christmas miracle” with sweeping changes to its German operations but no immediate factory closures, layoffs, or wage cuts. Still, some 35,000 jobs are on the chopping block soon, but factories should remain open.

This week, Bloomberg reports that Volkswagen and union leaders came to a deal after 70 hours of negotiations, and following five rounds of talks and two major strikes at the automaker’s German factories in the past month, involving some 100,000 workers, the largest in the company’s history.

VW said it would agree to keep its 10 German factories up and running and reinstate job security agreements until 2030, according to the report. However, workers agreed to forgo some bonuses, reduce permanent employment for trainees, and cut capacity at five factories for a total of about 700,000 vehicles.

The automaker will also cut more than 35,000 jobs in Germany by 2030, but do so in a “socially responsible manner.” The cuts are meant to save roughly $4.2 billion per year over the medium term, Bloomberg reports.

Volkswagen AG managers are also facing hefty pay cuts in the coming years, with about 4,000 managers forgoing bonuses equal to about 10% of their annual income next year, with small reductions through the end of the decade. However, top executives, including CEO Oliver Blume, don’t seem to be factored into the job cuts. But Bloomberg reports that unions are pushing for senior leadership, too, to take a 10% pay cut.

This comes at a time when VW is radically restructuring its business to slash costs, while seeking to streamline production and development processes, shaving off months on the development cycles of specific projects to help tighten the belts, all while rethinking its EV retail model to stay more competitive. Volkswagen has been facing a steep decline in sales in China, which is its core market, while simultaneously facing challenges from BYD and other Chinese automakers entering the European market.

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Ford, General Motors, and Toyota North America are donating $1 million each to incoming president Donald Trump’s January inauguration. Ford and GM are throwing in a fleet of vehicles for the January 20 event, too, for good measure.

Ford CEO Jim Farley said that he was optimistic that Trump would be open to lending a hand to legacy automakers struggling to ramp up and sell their EVs, Reuters reports. “(Given) Ford’s employment profile and importance in the US economy and manufacturing, you can imagine the administration will be very interested in Ford’s point of view,” Farley said.

GM’s CEO Marry Barra said that she believed the company and Trump were “goal-aligned.” She said: “We want a strong economy. We want a strong manufacturing base in this country. We agree automotive jobs are important. I think there’s a lot that we could work on.”

Trump’s transition team has been busy making plans to cut EV incentives and funding, which actually benefit companies like Ford. In addition, Trump is proposing steep tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, which could push the US EV market even further behind.

According to Reuters, Trump raised a record sum of $106.7 million for his 2017 inauguration, compared to President Joe Biden’s 61.8 million for his 2021 festivities.

Top CEOs and their companies are pledging millions of dollars to Trump’s inaugural committee, including Amazon and Meta, which have both donated $1 million each. Robinhood Markets is pledging $2 million, and $1 million each from Uber and its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will be added to the pot. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also said he would make a personal donation of $1 million.

“EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump recently wrote on a post on his social platform Truth Social – and many CEOs are lining up in hopes of getting on his good side before he takes office. And companies centered on fossil fuels could see outsized benefits in Trump’s revamping of US economic policy. Plus donating money in this fashion doesn’t carry the same connotation as, say, donating to a super PAC, which is a potential risk that could stir up controversy. And there are no caps on how much a company can donate to an inaugural committee, making this kind of donation an ideal way to curry favor.

In return for generous donations, Trump is offering special perks to donors who give at least $1 million, including tickets to inauguration activities and dinners with the incoming president and his team for much-coveted face-to-face time, according to the New York Times.

For the latest in glad tidings from the future president, he also took to Truth Social on Christmas Day in a manic, hour-long posting spree where he said, “Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics,” while telling Biden’s recently pardoned “37 most violent criminals” to “GO TO HELL.” ‘Tis the season.

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In what couldn’t have been more on-the-nose timing, a group of local California newspapers published an editorial on Christmas Eve calling for the end of a generous $2,000 voucher program intended to help low-income Californians afford electric bicycles for transportation.

The editorial was provided by the Southern California News Group, a collection of California newspapers owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

In it, the writers air a number of grievances against the program, which recently closed its first round of applications intended to provide around 1,500 e-bike vouchers of between US $1,750 to $2,000 each. The vouchers can be used to offset the price of electric bicycles and associated gear such as protective equipment, locks, etc.

The first complaint in the op-ed is that the total number of vouchers provided in the first round was relatively small compared to the large size of the California e-bike market. However, instead of suggesting that the budget be increased to help more Californians achieve transportation independence, as we called for recently, the editorial takes the opposite position of suggesting that the program simply be canceled.

Next, the writers bemoan an increase in electric bicycle and electric scooter accidents in recent years, suggesting that this should be weighed against the benefits of helping more Californians afford such vehicles.

However, the argument seems to conveniently overlook the fact that the vast majority of such accidents aren’t caused by e-bike riders, but rather those riders are in fact usually the victims. The actual danger to safety on roads is vehicular traffic, i.e. cars and trucks.

Furthermore, many studies have shown that in crashes caused by e-bike riders, such as when an e-bike rider hits another cyclist or pedestrian, the injuries are on average considerably lighter and more recoverable than in car-related crashes.

If the goal was to protect Californians, then instead of firmly clutching their pearls, perhaps the editorial writers should have urged a reduction in the use of cars and trucks, not a reduction in e-bike vouchers.

The op-ed even goes on to lament the number of children riding electric bicycles in California, though admits further on that children aren’t eligible to receive vouchers as part of California’s e-bike incentive program.

Electrek’s Take

California’s e-bike incentive program is certainly far from perfect. We even discussed many of its shortcomings last week. But the program’s essence is to do a good thing—using public tax money to benefit the public. The solution should be to improve the program, not to remove it. And the simple fact of the matter is that most people who are vehemently against the program are those who don’t directly benefit from it, even if they fail to realize that they will ultimately indirectly benefit.

Electric bicycles are one of the most cost-effective ways to provide transportation independence to marginalized and low-income groups. But it’s more than just that. They’re also the best way to get people out of cars and reduce traffic for everyone. Even ignoring the long-term environmental effects related to reducing the impacts of climate change, e-bikes are uniquely capable of making a larger impact on air quality today by helping to remove sources of emissions from a vehicle’s production all the way through its lifetime use and even to its eventual disposal/recycling. When someone rides an e-bike instead of taking a car, taxi, or bus, everyone’s lungs benefit.

Sure, the California program isn’t perfect. But if a media group owned by a wealthy hedgefund and catering to a well-to-do readership doesn’t like it, then that means it’s probably doing something helpful to people who actually need it. That’s the kind of world I want to live in, at least for as long as it’s still liveable.