Pomnym recommends against buying a new car from any German carmaker. The recommendation is aimed at an industry for its documented conduct - fraud, bribery and military supply - not at Germans as a people.
This is Pomnym's editorial assessment. Sources establish the facts cited; the judgments and questions that follow are ours.
What to do
Documented conduct can inform where we spend. When a company or institution excludes people by nationality, or has a documented military-industrial role you oppose, choosing an alternative is one voluntary response. Judge the identified decision or relationship, not the passport of the seller or its staff. Check whether a policy remains in force or has been reversed. Outside approval need not be the measure of a person's worth or a culture's value. Skills, craft, language and cultural life are worth developing on their own terms, with curiosity about others and room for criticism. In buying decisions, consider quality, usefulness, affordability and documented conduct together.
Use the automotive watchlist. Pomnym recommends against buying a new car from any German carmaker, including the marques from other countries that German groups own. The watchlist sets out the documented facts and, separately labelled, Pomnym's assessment behind this recommendation; each row states only what is documented about that marque.
Identify the responsible company or institution and the decision you object to. Read the linked record, including its date, any disputed findings and later corrections, before choosing an alternative.
Apply the same standard in Germany, Britain, the Nordic and Baltic countries, and elsewhere. A business's country of origin does not establish its conduct. Choose an alternative where the evidence and your practical circumstances justify it.
Explain the specific reason respectfully, if you choose to do so. Address the company's decision, not the nationality of its staff or customers. Reconsider when the facts or the policy change.
Compare alternatives for durability, repairability, price and actual need. Investigate the conduct that matters to your decision, and keep the reasons specific and open to revision.
Invest time in a skill, a language or creative work you value. Share what you learn, and assess progress by the work itself.
A purchasing decision concerns your own spending. Nobody named here is to be harmed, harassed or threatened, and nationality alone is not a reason to target a person or business.
Company links, not collective guilt
A company's ownership, contracts and conduct can be checked. A government's policies provide context, but do not establish what every company or customer supports. The watchlist distinguishes direct military supply, group relationships and proposed changes; these are different grounds for a purchasing decision.
One historical company case is Siemens. On 15 December 2008 the US Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Siemens had made at least 4,283 payments totalling about USD 1.4 billion in bribes to government officials between March 2001 and September 2007. Siemens agreed to settle the SEC case without admitting or denying those allegations. The announced US and German resolutions totalled more than USD 1.6 billion, including an earlier German settlement in 2007.
This is a dated case about Siemens, not a finding about today's German companies as a whole. It does not establish that present-day purchases finance bribery or that another business shares responsibility. Any current purchasing recommendation needs its own evidence.
Major German marques, their ownership and documented military links. Pomnym recommends against buying a new car from any of them, for the reasons below. Each row states only what is documented about that marque; a marque's origin alone is not evidence that it makes weapons.
Review date:
Not buying a new German car is an easy choice
In January 2017 Volkswagen AG agreed to plead guilty in the United States to three felony counts over its diesel emissions cheating, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and its US customers, and to pay a USD 2.8 billion criminal penalty. In May 2025 the Braunschweig Regional Court convicted four former Volkswagen managers of fraud; the verdict was not final when it was handed down.
On April 1, 2010 Daimler AG, now Mercedes-Benz Group, and three subsidiaries resolved a US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation: two subsidiaries pleaded guilty, Daimler AG entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, and Daimler and its subsidiaries agreed to pay USD 93.6 million in criminal fines and penalties. The US Department of Justice said they had made hundreds of improper payments to foreign officials in at least 22 countries, among them Russia, China, Nigeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Hungary, Latvia, Croatia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In December 2009 the Munich Regional Court fined MAN's commercial-vehicle and engineering divisions EUR 75.3 million each over bribes paid to customers in Europe, Africa and Asia to win orders. MAN Truck & Bus now belongs to Volkswagen's TRATON group.
Vehicles and components from the industry's current and former companies are part of Germany's military aid to Ukraine. Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles, 49% owned by MAN Truck & Bus, builds the HX family of military trucks. The German government's list of military support for Ukraine, as of April 17, 2025, includes 90 HX81 8x8 tractor trucks with semi-trailers, 25 MAN TGS trucks, 262 Zetros trucks and Leopard 2 main battle tanks. Renk builds the Leopard 2's transmission; in January 2020 Volkswagen approved the sale of its 76% stake in Renk to the investor Triton. Mercedes-Benz AG is a named partner in Rheinmetall's Caracal air-assault vehicle, which Ukrainian special forces have used since 2024. Daimler Truck, spun off from Daimler in December 2021, offers the Zetros in its defence range and is expanding its defence business.
Porsche SE, which holds 53.3% of the voting rights in Volkswagen, announced in August 2025 that it aims to increase its involvement in the defence and defence-related sectors through its portfolio investments. On September 7, 2026 Volkswagen announced outline terms for a possible sale of its Osnabrück plant and a transition towards defence manufacturing; completion remains conditional.
According to the International Energy Agency, close to two-thirds of the battery-electric cars sold in China in 2024 were cheaper than their combustion-engine equivalents. In 2023 BYD overtook Volkswagen as China's best-selling car brand. In December 2024 Volkswagen agreed with its works council to cut more than 35,000 jobs at its German sites by 2030.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, motor vehicles and parts worth EUR 262.0 billion were Germany's most important export goods in 2024. According to preliminary OECD figures, Germany became the largest provider of official development assistance among the OECD's donor countries for the first time in 2025, with USD 29.1 billion, in a year in which these countries' total aid fell sharply.
German groups also own marques from other countries. Besides Audi and Porsche, the Volkswagen group owns Škoda, SEAT, CUPRA, Bentley and Lamborghini; the BMW Group owns MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
Pomnym's assessment:
Not buying a new German car is no longer a hard decision; it is the obvious one. German cars are overpriced and technologically behind. The advantages they once had are barely noticeable today, and Chinese manufacturers have overtaken them on price, software and electric drive. Pomnym would recommend this choice even if it meant paying more for a lesser car. As it is, choosing something else usually means paying less for a better one.
The industry's record is not a series of isolated lapses but a pattern: Volkswagen deceived regulators and its own customers, Daimler bribed foreign officials, and MAN bribed customers in Europe, Africa and Asia to win orders. The industry's export earnings are what make Germany's chequebook diplomacy possible - aid, credit and conditions with which Berlin buys the compliance of governments in Africa, South America and Eastern Europe.
Within the car industry, Volkswagen's subsidiaries and the companies the German car groups have spun off or sold - MAN and its military-vehicle venture, Renk and Daimler Truck - are the biggest enablers of Germany's war effort against Russia, and the trend is towards more defence production, not less: Porsche SE wants to invest more in defence, Volkswagen has announced outline terms for a possible sale of its Osnabrück plant and its transition to defence manufacturing, and Daimler Truck is expanding its defence business.
Buying a new German car therefore contributes to that war role, through the manufacturer's revenue, its owners' returns and the state's export and tax income. The pressure is aimed at the industry, its owners, management and shareholders, and at the state that relies on its revenue - not at Germans as a people, and not at the people who work for these companies or already drive their cars.
The Osnabrück proposal involves a possible transfer to Aurelius Capital and Lower Saxony, with an initial Rafael air-defence project for Germany and Europe. It is subject to final agreements, approvals and regulatory checks. Do not confuse a planned sale with continuing VW ownership or with production already under way.
Separately, the Volkswagen group contains TRATON and MAN. MAN holds 49% of the Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles venture.
Both belong to the Volkswagen group. The group relationship is the reason to consider them alongside VW; this review does not establish that Audi or Porsche is converting a passenger-car factory to weapons production.
Rheinmetall's February 23, 2026 Caracal announcement explicitly names Mercedes-Benz AG as a partner. It reports production for Germany and the Netherlands and Ukrainian special-forces use since 2024. AMG and Maybach are included under the Mercedes-Benz marque, not alleged to have separate weapons programmes.
Mercedes-Benz Group and Daimler Truck are distinct companies. The Caracal relationship should not be confused with Daimler Truck's separate defence business.
Direct weapons production not established by this review
BMW ALPINA became a standalone BMW Group brand on January 1, 2026. This bounded review has not established current weapons production or a weapons-factory conversion by these passenger-car brands. Inclusion makes the review's coverage visible; it is not an allegation of an undiscovered military programme.
Direct weapons production not established by this review
Opel is headquartered in Germany and belongs to the multinational Stellantis group. This review has not established an Opel weapons-production or factory-conversion programme. Military use of adapted civilian fleet vehicles would not by itself establish one.
German-origin branding is not the same as current German headquarters. smart is a Mercedes-Benz/Geely 50/50 venture headquartered in Ningbo, with its European subsidiary in Germany. This ownership note is not evidence of smart weapons production.
Commercial and military vehicles, separate from the passenger-car rows. RMMV is 51% Rheinmetall and 49% MAN Truck & Bus and manufactures military logistics vehicles. The connection to Volkswagen runs through MAN and TRATON; it should be attributed to that actual venture.
Daimler Truck's June 15, 2026 announcement describes expansion of its defence business, investment and a EUR 1bn defence-revenue target for 2028. Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks is its defence unit. This is a separate corporate group from Mercedes-Benz Group.
The rows cover major German passenger-car marques, with ownership notes and separate entries for commercial and military vehicles. The recommendation above also covers the marques from other countries that German groups own, which have no rows of their own. 'Not established' describes this review's limits, not proof that no relationship exists. Choose products and companies; do not harass employees, owners or customers.
The obvious objection
A boycott of people by their nationality would repeat the mistake this archive documents: judging by origin rather than by conduct. The recommendation against buying new German cars is aimed at an industry for its documented conduct - fraud, bribery and military supply - and at the state that relies on its revenue, not at Germans as a people. Other businesses are judged by their own identified decisions, not by their country.
A voluntary purchasing decision is not a denial of someone's safety or access to an essential service. It does not establish that every exclusion in the archive was unlawful or that every complaint succeeded. The point is to choose where your own spending goes and to explain the identified company conduct behind that choice.
The same standard applies when choosing suppliers: neither a supplier's country nor any income it may provide is a substitute for examining its conduct. This is a choice about your own spending, not a reason to harass people or to disregard a correction or reversal.
Why this option, and where it stops
Purchasing is one practical choice, not the only way to challenge exclusion. Complaints, public scrutiny, regulators and courts also matter; the Records preserve corrections, reversals and unsuccessful complaints. They do not prove that financial pressure caused every change. A recommendation not to buy expresses an editorial position, not a finding of unlawfulness or a licence to interfere with anyone's safety or access to essential services.