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Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

handelsblatt.com

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Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#111

Post by LifeLiverTransp »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #72
Brakenshire wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do those companies really have a problem with software? I’d imagine most of the software in cars is embedded, for controlling different mechanisms for the brakes, steering, cooling, etc. For those, I would prefer a stuffy bureacratic process rather than a Tesla, SV style move-fast attitude, even if that is more productive. I want software in a car to be finished and tested fully when the car is delivered, and then to…

Yes, they do. I am working in a huge company (top 50) where the software we use is from ~ 2000 with upgrades that gets it to ~ 2008-2010. I was offered a higher management position in an automotive company in the embedded software division, I have a friend working there in a peer position and I am going to decline based on the information I received not just from my friend, but from the interviewers: it is corporate…

Munich?

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#112

Post by Volrath89 »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #70
Brakenshire wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do those companies really have a problem with software? I’d imagine most of the software in cars is embedded, for controlling different mechanisms for the brakes, steering, cooling, etc. For those, I would prefer a stuffy bureacratic process rather than a Tesla, SV style move-fast attitude, even if that is more productive. I want software in a car to be finished and tested fully when the car is delivered, and then to…

I don't know exactly how it works at VW or BMW, but large enterprises may have a big in-house software engineering unit which is focused on internal software systems (manufacturing management, supply chains etc) and the effort put in it can be even bigger than in the embedded software. This kind of enterprise software may boost or slow down the transformation of the company, depending on how the development and deplo…

As a freelance dev one of my clients is the official distributor (seller) of one of the german giants in another country. They force us to use their erp. Just querying a 1M row table took more than 5 minutes. I inspected the DB and what did I find? Tables in german and english. No indexes for PKs. A lot of PKs that were pure strings... We suffer from bad data, strange bugs and awful performance. Really surprising of a sw coming from Germany

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#113

Post by Volrath89 »

kayoone wrote: post #96
iamctobitch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sorry this is wrong. 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.

Our company is trying to hire 50 more developers until end of the year and its hard, we get them from all over the world, especially India and Africa has a lot of good talent nowadays but also east europeans. But it's still hard to find good people.

Hey I'm a full stack dev looking forward to move to europe; I consider myself "nicht schlecht" as a developer; already lived 1 year in Germany (worked as an intern in VW) and would have to study the language again but could be up and running before the end of the year. Hopefully your company is looking for some C# devs among those 50, email in my profile

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#114

Post by expertentipp »

ahartmetz wrote: post #56
iamctobitch wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a job which strictly requires expertise from a "German developer" which a Romanian or Polish or Crotaian Developer can't do.

The problem with those Eastern European developers is not that they are bad developers - they are pretty good value for money in and of themselves. The problem is that they are wrapped up in the structures that are killing German automotive software. They are probably the ones that get hired to implement the crap that architects made up and that """only""" needs implementation, no questions asked. Just write the code…

Can confirm - in many industries regardless whether one works in Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, or Poland, the directory will be German. The difference being in Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland the cost-cutting will be more aggressive and the decision making will be more strictly top-down. Something among the lines "just write this bloody thing, you C/Java/Angular whore".

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#115

Post by RealityVoid »

xcvvv wrote: post #33
_the_inflator wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely second that as a German as well. Disruption is desperately needed and I am glad that a 16 year old company kicks the German complacency out of business. Reinvention? What sort of? They don't get software, they don't get new business models. That's why they stick to politics who should save their models - which is protectionism. Germany's car makers were never customer first. What kind of innovation did Ger…

While there are probably horrible bureaucratic structures in Germany's car industry, I think this comment isn't quite fair. Mercedes and BMW are still very nice to drive in. The issue is more that German's generally don't believe in fads, and self-driving cars are one of them. I just don't want a self driving car, which takes away the last bit of fun of sitting in a metal box: Being in charge of where the damn box go…

I find it hilarious you're pointing self-driving cars as a "fad". It is such a transformative technology for society, its usefulness is obvious and it's not even deployed, so how then, can it be a fad?

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#116

Post by Haga »

_the_inflator wrote: post #28
Haga wrote: post #20

A company can not invent away from theire main field - in this case combustion engines. Every time the weather changes some of those in Old power will backstab the internal upstarts.

It is about mobility. Why limit yourself to cars? Why not offer e scooters, bikes? The whole concept of owning a car is wrong. With German cities becoming more and more like megacities, it is important to focus on mobility and not on selling cars.

It's the linear mindset that's the main problem. None of these guys would even dare the gaben bezos dream of becoming the market. There is no open appstore in any of these cars.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#117

Post by dgudkov »

RealityVoid wrote: post #115
xcvvv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are probably horrible bureaucratic structures in Germany's car industry, I think this comment isn't quite fair. Mercedes and BMW are still very nice to drive in. The issue is more that German's generally don't believe in fads, and self-driving cars are one of them. I just don't want a self driving car, which takes away the last bit of fun of sitting in a metal box: Being in charge of where the damn box go…

I find it hilarious you're pointing self-driving cars as a "fad". It is such a transformative technology for society, its usefulness is obvious and it's not even deployed, so how then, can it be a fad?

The fad is not the technology but the hype around it. The expectations are overblown. Safe, suitable for mass use, understandable from a legal perspective, self-driving cars most probably won't happen in the next 10 years.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#118

Post by Proven »

> VW CEO Diess says the transformation of the industry could cost German firms around €100 billion.

Blame the government and EU. More expensive cars which couldn't be sold, and wouldn't be bought, were it not for the government.

Perfect storm, yes, but of statism and central planning.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#119

Post by edem »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #76
edem wrote: post #49

About time. I had the "luck" of working for multiple German companies (including Volkswagen) and I'm surprised how these behemoths still function. As a grunt programmer, it was painful to see how the upper management made decisions based on politics which made no technological sense whatsoever. In my years of working for German companies I saw multiple project reboots, millions of $s thrown out of the window on faile…

You're describing all large organisations, pretty much.

I'm not sure. I think this hierarchical nonsense is a German thing. I've worked for IBM and it was a different experience. Still dysfunctional, but in a different way. I never felt at IBM that I was not heard. I also see how Microsoft fixed itself and turned itself around which is an admirable achievement.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#120

Post by sctb »

n1111 wrote: post #71
iamctobitch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when industry is supported by government and whole ecosystem is created around it, this does give competitive advantages but induces complacemenement. Their final resort is politics (protectionism) to preserve their competitive advantage. In Germany, there is no way for an engineer to become very wealthy through entrepreneurship. Even if you bought a house, you can't make much money from it throu…

HN has a strong civil servant / teacher lobby who have time and money to downvote everything that threatens their privileges.

Teacher lobby! Good Lord, that's a new one. But could you please not break the guidelines?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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