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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

#131

Post by drdeadringer »

iagovar wrote: post #57
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…

They won't learn. I work for another euro behemoth and it's exactly the situation you describe. As long as they pay me and support my lifestyle I have no problem, but Im already tired of trying to fight the nonsense. Sadly Im not a programmer so finding other companies with the same conditions is hard.

I am reminded of a Tom Lehrer lyric/song:

"As long as They, give me my pay, I'll do it Their way!"

There are many ways to live for and against this. These days I'm not sure if there's a wrong or correct answer for most things, though I do still have a rather mobile and grey line that can be crossed.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#132

Post by ivan_gammel »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #81
ivan_gammel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shortage of developers in Germany is exactly the reason why people from Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa are hired in the first place. There's plenty of reports and publications discussing this shortage from last 10-15 years - it's not new and it has never been solved. Just an example: https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/companies/wirtschaftswund... I don't know what kind of CTO you are (I'm CTO too), but if…

Completely wrong: there is no shortage of developers, there is a shortage of competent people. Huge difference. Not a CxO myself, but high enough to feel the pain of hiring good people, especially when HR does not allow to pay them properly - for them all developers are the same, so they all get about the same salary.

Ok, that also fits my understanding of the market - I don’t receive all the applications, because our HR team is good at filtering. Unfortunately, German businesses are very strong in salary negotiations, so it’s a whole big thing to sell the idea of fair market compensation inside the company.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#133

Post by [deleted] »

lnsru wrote: post #87
iagovar wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't learn. I work for another euro behemoth and it's exactly the situation you describe. As long as they pay me and support my lifestyle I have no problem, but Im already tired of trying to fight the nonsense. Sadly Im not a programmer so finding other companies with the same conditions is hard.

Exact my situation. Working for a company with roots in Siemens. The culture is terrible, must fight the nonsense to get some meaningful task. Getting insane money for doing nothing, loosing skills every month, mental health suffers, but family depends on my income. Finding other companies in Germany with similar conditions is hard, looking now in Switzerland.

[deleted]

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#134

Post by jsemrau »

bookofjoe wrote: post #78

I was surprised to find OP didn't cite what I believe to be an even more existential threat: the rise of Tesla's bit-based cabin vs. the atom-based tradition of legacy makers. Compare the Model S with its elegant, minimalist, understandable layout vs. the latest Mercedes-Benz S-Class cabin, which resembles a miniaturized version of the space shuttle: countless dials, screens, buttons, switches, levers, and lights abo…

I worked for a car company and that is at least there the result of internal politics and power structures.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#135

Post by apta »

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…

> with managers with no IT knowledge running IT like a plant floor, ...

So why don't you join and try to change things for the better?

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#136

Post by Tade0 »

andreagrandi wrote: post #19

"The German industry was hit by slump in sales in the third and fourth quarters of last year" Oh really? I asked the shipping time for a Polo (2017 model) and I've been told 160-180 days. I'm not surprised if they don't sell many cars.

My friend got "up to 270 days" on a Skoda Superb.

The wait for a very specifically optioned Prius in my country, in which barely several hundred of these vehicles are moved annually, is at most four months from commission to getting the keys.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#137

Post by FullyFunctional »

Bouncingsoul1 wrote: post #26
FullyFunctional wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these Tesla competitors ... they are not really competitors unless they offer access to the Super Charger Network or provide something similar. More than anything the Super Charger is a game changer. Even though I very very rarely uses it, it enables the occasional long distance trip, making it practical to own just an EV and not need a 2nd car (or rent one)

well they do, just with another brandname https://ionity.eu/en/about.html , BMW,Daimler,VW,Ford sharing resources on this just makes sense

Do you pay to charge?

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#138

Post by rasz »

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.

In most corpos your good idea will be stolen, in EU it has equal if not greater chance of being ignored.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#139

Post by mpweiher »

candiodari wrote: post #122
asymmetric wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> aren't even environmentally superior I’d be very curious to hear how the would argue for _that_.

Lithium ion batteries are the combination of something that needs to be mined in the third world, with fuel shipped from across the world, combined with battery acid. Something like 20ml of that will kill you. It will also kill pretty much every plant and even most bacteria. When it doesn't melt down that is. Oh and their fuel, the electricity ? Mostly comes from coal power plants which, despite TRIPLE the efficientc…

Very good overview!

>> ..German automative engineers, they will be able to show ..

Note that I personally don't necessarily agree, but the arguments are not weak.

Another point is that a good Diesel engine, and they have apparently fixed the emissions problems, is actually amazingly efficient, and on longer distances beats electric vehicles when you take into account the whole fuel to wheel chain for the current grid mix.

When you look at the greater weight (= production costs = environmental impact) of electric vehicles, that has to be amortised over the life of the vehicle. When the vehicle does mostly long distance, it is not going to be able to do that, because the Diesel is actually more efficient.

However, vehicles that primarily do short distances tend to actually not be driven much at all, they mostly sit around taking up parking space. So those aren't going to amortise the greater environmental investment either.

The exception would be vehicles that get driven a lot, but over short distances, so buses and taxis, but that's not a huge percentage of the total fleet. (And gives you a link between electric and self-driving, a link that otherwise doesn't make a lot of sense: converting to self-driving on-demand/rental cars is one of the ways to get electric to have a positive total impact).

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#140

Post by sievebrain »

edem wrote: post #60
iamctobitch wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm surprised how these behemoths still function. You haven't seen Brazilian or India companies in comparison with same level of buercracy and lacking in resources and technology. German companies are still working because rest of the world is soo bad in comparison. But this is changing as China/US will compete directly head to head in EV segment and both of them already have massive software ecosystem which did not…

I've seen "The Big Short" movie lately and I was flabbergasted about how the finance industry works. I'm beginning to realize that this pattern is universal in all industries. I also see that we as a species are suffering from the same mechanism. We won't learn until it is too late. I want to understand the pattern so I can find a way out of it somehow. BTW: where do you work as a CTO?

I think with software specifically it's less dysfunctional in the tech industry.
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