Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

Long story short they are forcing us to do things as they always been done even though they asked us to change them in the first place.

I know engineers how left Opel after the merger with PSA because PSA is that what you describe. At Opel it was much different.

It used to be also different at Mercedes. Engineers are leaving right now Mercedes because they "streamline" their engineering. Which basically means cutting cost in terms that engineers who worked for the next generation cars now have to develop as well for the series production. THAT is killing innovation. Because developing for series production means developing with cutting costs in mind, like can we spare this resistor or that memory.

Al the engineers I worked with are not working for the series production but always thinking 10 years ahead and planing, developing and testing new ideas.

Apple killed its "automotive business" not without a reason. Because automotive is very much different than IT software. Automotive systems are highly connected embedded device. The next BMW 7 series released in 2021 will have 20 different CAN bus based networks. Automotive development means also development with preventing bugs in the first place. Because finding bugs by testing in these highly complex systems is next to impossible. This development style makes development slow. Because it is not the mind set "we can fix that later". Updates are expansive. Previously it meant they need to pay the service stations. Today with OTA it means to pay the telecoms.

Automotive development means also thinking about obsolesce. Yes, people get every 2 years a new phone. But what it with old once. An iPhone 4 these days is almost completely unusable. While some people have their cars new every 3 years, the average car usage is 16 years, in the US, IIRC. That means the average car is older than the smartphone as we know it. Automotive development means to develop with predicting the future 15 to 20 years ahead. Parts needs to be available, because people want to have their car serviced.

I just want to remind that Teslas with AP1 don't get no more updates. That is breaking his promise that all Teslas, all as in ALL, will improve by OTA. That is how old?

I know that other OEM are going the same route. But I don't see this as a disruption or innovation at all. It just means more land fill and is an environmental disaster.

BTW: My truck for pleasure is over 44 years old with no electronics at all. My car is a 18 year old Volvo, the first were Volvo introduced CAN and LIN, and I know the engineer who where responsible for that at that time.

How about: the car (Carl Benz)? And the motorcycle (Daimler)?

All the common (and uncommon) engine types: Otto, Diesel, Wankel.

More recently, always-on four wheel drive (Quattro). I am sure I am leaving out a ton of innovation in engine and drivetrain technologies.

> Germany's car makers are great at marketing

That's a fairly new development. German car companies were (and still are) very much engineering led. See, for example, Ferdinand Porsche or more recently Piëch.

What you are describing is the US car industry, which has been absolutely marketing-dominated since at least the 50s.

In fact, I'd argue that the current problems are, if anything, a result of the engineering-centeredness, which has a hard time dealing with disruptive innovation. A key feature of a disruptive innovation is that it is demonstrably worse than the incumbent, so engineers will dismiss it as "not good enough" and "toy", and be right. They just miss that there are new criteria, at which the new innovation beats the pants off the old.

I am pretty sure that if you discuss the current situation with German automative engineers, they will be able to show to you very convincingly that electric cars are a joke, don't perform adequately and aren't even environmentally superior. And that electric cars and particularly self-driving cars are marketing gimmicks.

But customer sentiment has shifted (marketing side) and technology and engineering will follow.

The Chinese car market is the largest in the world and due to EV popularity, by far the largest and most important EV market. If VW doesn't prevail there, they aren't likely to come anywhere near the position of "biggest EV producer". Perhaps tariffs will save the EU/US markets from getting dominated by Asian EV makers, but the Chinese market is decided for now.

You can import East European labor very easily in Germany, so there is no shortage of developers in German market and there never will be in foreseable future.

Labor comes from outside, this is precisely why the things are kept at the top so that external people don't get the required information to rival the mothership.