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Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

reuters.com

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Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#41

Post by velodrome »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #33
valarauca1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40 hour work week? Unions Weekend off? Unions 9-5? Unions Retirement Savings? Unions Pension Program? Unions Health Benefits? Unions Vacation Time? Unions Sick Time? Unions Lunch break? Unions Work place safety regulations? Unions Boss threaten to fire you if you don't let him screw your wife? Unions

Just a friendly reminder that people had been beaten, shot at, bombed and attacked by the US military for the things you listed. Employers were not willing to give those concessions without a fight.

> Employers were not willing to give those concessions without a fight.

Today, they don't have to fight. They can offshore, outsource, or automate your job. There are a lot more options these days then there were back then...

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#42

Post by vvanders »

SEJeff wrote: post #16
S_A_P wrote: post #9

As a former Audi owner, I wonder if the "audi service position" will be applicable to their electric cars. Tangental I know, but I would be curious to know if they will make their cars easier/cheaper to service. I never really had much trouble with my A4, but maintenance costs upwards of 1k per 6 months(I was driving a lot of miles at the time) turned me off to the ownership experience.

Electric cars are far from perfect, but the simple fact that they have less moving parts than an ICE vehicle. No fanbelts to stretch, no flywheels to break, no fuel injection pump, etc, etc. Other than normal wear and tear, there should be massively less maintenance required for electric vehicles.

There's a cooling system(at least in the EVs where you don't want fast battery degradation) so that is the only "large" maintenance item.

Even then it's only at ~45k and runs about $700.

Overall running costs for EVs are incredibly low. At 48k miles right now and my cost in tires($1k @ 30k mi) is actually my highest per-mile cost, even above electricity.

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#43

Post by bluGill »

csomar wrote: post #2

Is it me or unions on Germany are a species of their own kind? I mean I'm expected the union to do strikes to raise salaries, protect laziness and unproductive workers, counter automation and firing of current workers... Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting down-voted over this.

A "smart" union needs to consider the health of the company. If they get a salary of $1million per yer for each employee it is obvious that no company cannot afford the salary and will go out of business in a few months and all employees get 0 after that until they find a new job. (This is a strawman argument, but it makes the point clear) A union that is smart should force the company to do things that will keep the company in business.

Note that unions, management, and investors are often not smart. This is often to their long term harm.

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#44

Post by jessewmc »

bluGill wrote: post #32
S_A_P wrote: post #9

As a former Audi owner, I wonder if the "audi service position" will be applicable to their electric cars. Tangental I know, but I would be curious to know if they will make their cars easier/cheaper to service. I never really had much trouble with my A4, but maintenance costs upwards of 1k per 6 months(I was driving a lot of miles at the time) turned me off to the ownership experience.

Depends on a lot of factors. There is no engine oil, so the first scheduled maintenance will probably be the cabin airfilter (20000 miles in every car I've had that has one), and I would guess that anything in the suspension that needs grease will get the same interval (many cars have nothing to grease today but it is a possibility). Then there are tires. Brake pads should last a little longer, but I'm not sure how m…

A4s (and to a slightly lesser extent all other Audis) have been, up until very recently, among the most unreliable new vehicles for sale since the model's inception.

Combine that with expensive Audi parts, expensive and zealous dealership labour, and they are unbelievably expensive to maintain.

I own a 2006 that I bought for a song--I do my own service, so I was willing to take a bit of risk. The cars are very difficult to work on, even an oil change involves special tools and working around a poorly laid out engine bay. It takes me twice as long to do as any other car I've done.

The previous owner of my car put 120,000km on it. I only have the last 50,000km or so of records, but in that time it was towed to the dealer at least twice according to the service records, and she spent upwards of $10,000 on regular service ($250 oil changes? yep) and fixing broken stuff that shouldn't break at that mileage (turbo blowoff valve, ignition coils on more than one occasion, brake lines, the list goes on). She spent over $1000 on every trip to the dealer in that time.

I do not understand anyone who buys a new Audi, or for that matter any German car. It's ridiculous.

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#45

Post by wavefunction »

csomar wrote: post #36
Sharlin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting down-voted over this. Because your characterization of unions just sounds like blindly repeating the anti-union propaganda that has been so successful in the US starting from Reagan's time.

Not really, I'm not from the US and I don't know the US history with unions. I'm speaking from practical experience in my country and several other countries where unions where responsible (or a cause) for the collapse of several companies and industries.

Would you say the same things about executives as you did about unions? There have been a few failures of companies and industries at their hands as well.

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#46

Post by masklinn »

1ba9115454 wrote: post #8

The Unions in Germany are considered to be very strong. This works well in companies where managers don't have a lot of imagination and who's first reaction is to fire staff when the going gets tough. For example VW wanted to cut 3000 workers. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-redundancies-id... After talks with the Union they rescinded somewhat and now the losses will be through attrition. i.e. wait for p…

> This works well in companies where managers don't have a lot of imagination and who's first reaction is to fire staff when the going gets tough.

Not really that's US-style or French-style management and the result is hard clashes between labour and management.

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#47

Post by aidos »

vvanders wrote: post #42
SEJeff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars are far from perfect, but the simple fact that they have less moving parts than an ICE vehicle. No fanbelts to stretch, no flywheels to break, no fuel injection pump, etc, etc. Other than normal wear and tear, there should be massively less maintenance required for electric vehicles.

There's a cooling system(at least in the EVs where you don't want fast battery degradation) so that is the only "large" maintenance item. Even then it's only at ~45k and runs about $700. Overall running costs for EVs are incredibly low. At 48k miles right now and my cost in tires($1k @ 30k mi) is actually my highest per-mile cost, even above electricity.

Out of interest, which EV do you own?

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#48

Post by justin66 »

kalleboo wrote: post #31
csomar wrote: post #2

Is it me or unions on Germany are a species of their own kind? I mean I'm expected the union to do strikes to raise salaries, protect laziness and unproductive workers, counter automation and firing of current workers... Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting down-voted over this.

No, it's American unions that are a species of their own kind.

Several different species, really. The UAW is at least as dissimilar to the Screen Actors Guild as it is from Audi's union.

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#49

Post by sf_rob »

bluGill wrote: post #32
S_A_P wrote: post #9

As a former Audi owner, I wonder if the "audi service position" will be applicable to their electric cars. Tangental I know, but I would be curious to know if they will make their cars easier/cheaper to service. I never really had much trouble with my A4, but maintenance costs upwards of 1k per 6 months(I was driving a lot of miles at the time) turned me off to the ownership experience.

Depends on a lot of factors. There is no engine oil, so the first scheduled maintenance will probably be the cabin airfilter (20000 miles in every car I've had that has one), and I would guess that anything in the suspension that needs grease will get the same interval (many cars have nothing to grease today but it is a possibility). Then there are tires. Brake pads should last a little longer, but I'm not sure how m…

Tesla's batteries appear to be holding up very well to cycling degradation (batteries also degrade with time so there hasn't been as much of a span to evaluate how that factors in to the real world). 92% at 100k miles.

https://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-s-battery-pack-da...

Re: Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

#50

Post by sithadmin »

bluGill wrote: post #32
S_A_P wrote: post #9

As a former Audi owner, I wonder if the "audi service position" will be applicable to their electric cars. Tangental I know, but I would be curious to know if they will make their cars easier/cheaper to service. I never really had much trouble with my A4, but maintenance costs upwards of 1k per 6 months(I was driving a lot of miles at the time) turned me off to the ownership experience.

Depends on a lot of factors. There is no engine oil, so the first scheduled maintenance will probably be the cabin airfilter (20000 miles in every car I've had that has one), and I would guess that anything in the suspension that needs grease will get the same interval (many cars have nothing to grease today but it is a possibility). Then there are tires. Brake pads should last a little longer, but I'm not sure how m…

>If you are driving this many miles the VW diesels (same base platform as the A4, though less luxury) can probably pay for the entire car including maintenance just in fuel savings.

The only VW in the same platform (B) as the A4 is the Passat, and there's a lot less shared components between the A4 and Passat than there are for platform A models.

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