Germany is well known for producing high-quality vehicles.

Its luxury car companies are the crown jewel of the country's manufacturing sector.

But recently, those companies have been flashing warning signs.

After years of roaring down the autoban, a speed bump for Porsche.

Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz posting year-on-year declines of over 40% in net profits.

The iconic sports car maker notched up a spectacular third-quarter loss of almost 1 billion euros.

There is sort of a creeping sense of panic. up a spectacular third quarter loss of almost one billion euros.

There is sort of a creeping sense of panic.

Our colleague Boyan Panchevsky covers Europe,

and he's been reporting on the pain being felt throughout Germany's economy.

Germany is basically losing roughly 15,000 jobs

from manufacturing each month.

Wow, wow.

This is a striking figure.

Per month.

Yeah, it's a striking figure.

It's a bloodbath.

Yeah.

And obviously, it's a situation that requires urgent action, both on behalf of the businesses, on the enterprises, and the government who is like

desperate to help them and stop to bleed.

German officials and companies have been feverishly looking for a way to inject life into the economy,

and that led to a big aha moment.

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