Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by paulddraper » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

rajathagasthya wrote: post #35

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.

1k per 6 months of maintenance costs? If you don't mind answering, what kind of maintenance was it that you had to do every 6 months?

More likely it was maintenance every 18 months that cost 3k.

Everything is more expensive on an Audi. It's thousands to replace the fan belt, because you basically have to take the whole car apart.

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

#52

Post by zardo » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

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.

Critically though, there is nothing like the head to block interface, which is a major source of cooling system issues on IC engines.

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

#53

Post by masklinn » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #43

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…

> Note that unions, management, and investors are often not smart.

And that's an important point, because a "smart union" only works if management doesn't try to railroad them at every turn. It's not exactly surprising that e.g. US Unions had to be hard rather than smart, given management or investors would call the army on them.

In the nordic model, unions are part of corporate governance and thus can have significant stake in and impact on corporate policy, in the US unions are considered pests to be squashed and only listened to when there's literally no other way.

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

#54

Post by masklinn » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #13

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.

There's a mindset in much of europe that labor and capital are partners in determining a company's or even industry's future. In fact, the unions often sit down to negotiate with the government and industry leaders as equals to set industry policies.

"Much of europe" is a bit too generalising, that's more specifically the german and nordic model, labour relations in e.g. France have historically been much more combative and closer to the US's.

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

#55

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

Audi/VW has been dragging their feet bigtime on the EV movement and wasting a whole bunch of energy shoving money down the turbodiesel pipe.

In North America VW actually pulled their only hybrid from their lineup for 2017, in the middle of dieselgate when hundreds of thousands of TDI owners who bought their diesel for its fuel economy are looking for a replacement.

They have their e-tron line, and they _look_ nice but they are far inferior to other PHEVs, especially the Chevy Volt and pack only an 8kwh battery.

When I give up my TDI because of dieselgate next month or the month after VW has nothing to offer me.

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

#56

Post by johnchristopher » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #46

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.

But aren't US and French unions considered weak compared to Germany ? That would make the stance correct.

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

#57

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #26

I have a 2017 Audi Etron PHEV. For our single car household it's nearly the perfect car. Given how refined it seems I'm surprised that Audi/VW took so long to bring a PHEV to market. The dealer told me that they are pushing EVs now to help remake the company's image after the diesel cheating debacle. The unions probably see this repositioning and reasonably want to secure their members foothold in it.

w/ dieselgate in Canada, I get a sales tax break if I buy VW or Audi when I do the buy back or trade in for my TDI.

I briefly considered the e-tron but the battery is too small. And doesn't drive as nice as a Chevy Volt.

The interior and exterior styling are amazing though.

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

#58

Post by valarauca1 » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

velodrome wrote: post #41

darpa_escapee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Not really.

These all boil down to the same thing. Firing the offending laborer. So really we haven't advanced far since the 1850's.

---

This is why Anti-Unionists get so pissy about Unions blocking people from being fired. It removes the main power owners have over their workers.

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

#59

Post by MrFantastic » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

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…

Car batteries have value to provide peak power backups for electric companies.

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

#60

Post by vvanders » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #47

vvanders wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Model S 85D