U.S. carmaker Tesla will acquire parts of the insolvent German high-tech parts maker Manz AG , including more than 300 employees at its site in Reutlingen city in the southwest, the German company said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The deal marks a wider presence by Tesla in Germany, where it runs a manufacturing site near Berlin, even after CEO Elon Musk endorsed the far-right party AfD, which mainstream parties have refused to work with due to its extreme positions. Tesla sold almost 60% fewer cars in Germany in January than a year earlier, as the U.S.

Germany’s economy contracted in the final quarter of 2024, the country’s statistics agency confirmed Tuesday, underlining the scale of the challenge for the next German government to turn around its economic fortunes, the Wall Street Journal reported. Europe’s largest economy shrank 0.2% in the three months to the end of December, matching a prior estimate published in January, the agency Destatis said. The country’s economy contracted for a second year in a row in 2024, also by 0.2%.

A decade ago, Germany was the model nation. Its economy hadn’t just withstood the ascendance of China; it was thriving in its wake. Its balanced public finances stood out in a world of huge government debt. And while British and U.S. lawmakers were caught up in the culture wars, German politicians continued to practice the art of compromise. Today, Germany has gone from paragon to pariah, according to a Wall Street Journal commentary. Its economic model is broken, its self-confidence shattered and its political landscape fractured.

German eVTOL developer Lilium is facing another financial crisis as the company struggles to secure a critical funding package that was expected to stabilise its operations, Zag Daily reported. After announcing a €200 million rescue deal on Christmas Eve, Lilium has so far received only a fraction of the promised funds, leaving it unable to pay salaries and forcing it to suspend operations. With time running out, the company may be forced to file for insolvency if the remaining investment does not materialise.

Germany faces major labour disputes in 2025, as an established bond between firms and workers -- long seen as a pillar of the country's economic success -- is starting to unravel in the wake of brutal competition, economic weakness and spiralling costs, Reuters reported. Labour bosses at industrial giants Bosch, Thyssenkrupp Friedrichshafen and Volkswagen - jointly representing more than half a million German workers - say that firms are showing a new level of determination to cut jobs, close factories and move staff abroad.

Germany's trade surplus with the United States reached a record level, data from the statistics office showed, as countries wait to learn how U.S. President Donald Trump will impose tariffs on imported goods, Reuters reported. Germany's trade surplus with the U.S. expanded to 70 billion euros ($72 billion) in 2024, well above the previous record of 63.3 billion euros reported for the full year 2023. "It would be hard to imagine worse timing," said Holger Goerg, from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).

Europe is prepared to act in response to possible restrictions to trade, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Monday, after holding discussions with industry lobbies and the EU's top trade representative about the threat of tariffs from the U.S., Reuters reported. "Europe must and can only react unitedly and decisively to unilateral trade restrictions. And we are prepared for this," Habeck said in a statement.

Industrial production in Germany sank in December, driven by a fall in output from the car industry, a further weak note for the troubled sector as it faces the threat of U.S. tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. Output declined 2.4% on month in December, German statistics agency Destatis said Friday. Production fell 4.5% in 2024 as a whole. The fall in December, more than offsetting the 1.3% growth in November, was driven by auto production, which contracted 10%.

Gerresheimer AG, the German maker of packaging for drugs and cosmetics, is exploring a potential sale amid interest from private equity funds, Bloomberg News reported. Dusseldorf-based Gerresheimer is working with advisers to gauge interest from possible buyers asking not to be identified because the information is private. Shares of Gerresheimer jumped as much as 15% in German trading on Friday, giving the company a market value of about €2.7 billion ($2.8 billion). Warburg Pincus, EQT AB and KKR & Co. are among suitors that have been studying the business.

German photovoltaic solutions provider Tauber-Solar said on Tuesday that it has taken over the insolvent German business of Austria's Encome Energy Performance, strengthening its services in the photovoltaic and battery storage sector, RenewablesNow.com reported. Effective from February 1, Tauber-Solar has assumed the operating and maintenance (O&M) activities of Encome Energy Performance Deutschland GmbH. The asset deal covers 150 O&M contracts for over 360 PV systems and includes the transfer of 28 employees.