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Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

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Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#71

Post by gumby »

pedalpete wrote: post #66
astrange wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada, China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely getting in. What are Australia and Canada doing in there? Australia has… Atlassian? Besides that, I’ve only heard of developers in Aus/Canada/Japan being well paid if they work for US companies like Google or are parked there…

I'm a Canadian living in Australia. Australia has much more than just Atlassian. Canva is the 9th most valuable private company according to crunchbase [1]. But you need to look deeper than just "who has the biggest most successful companies. Note, the comment says "countries that understand software". From what I've seen, and one of the reasons I moved here, Australia values quality production. They understand where…

As an Australian I appreciate you understanding my root comment!

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#72

Post by gumby »

astrange wrote: post #52
gumby wrote: post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

> IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada, China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely getting in. What are Australia and Canada doing in there? Australia has… Atlassian? Besides that, I’ve only heard of developers in Aus/Canada/Japan being well paid if they work for US companies like Google or are parked there…

pedalpete responded about Australia and Canada.

Japan considers programming a blue collar task so pays accordingly (though there are exceptions, like Sony Computer Entertainment). But culturally the companies tend to understand the role of software better and have for a while. Remember how great the Keitei were in the late 90s/early 2000s compared to anywhere else in the world?

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#73

Post by MBCook »

est31 wrote: post #67
gumby wrote: post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

> But ("FSD" excepted) they spend more of their attention on what really matters: treating their vehicle as a modern electronic device. But the European car companies are still stuck in the mid 20th century and make the opposite branch cut. The rest of European industry is the same. You can probably say the same about GM or Ford, and I'd extend this to companies that sell hardware products in general. In the US too,…

I can’t speak to GM but from my experience with a Ford Mach E they’re starting to get it.

The interface, while not perfect, is not the kind of OEM junk I’ve seen from others. They’ve got working OTAs, although it’s going slow and they’re learning.

They may end up outsourcing a lot of that to Google’s Android based car platform (also called Android Auto?).

But they seemed to have learned from Tesla it’s an integral part of the car these days and not something you tack on at the end. It will take time but they are genuinely moving in the right direction at a reasonable (but not fast) pace.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#74

Post by barry-cotter »

astrange wrote: post #52
gumby wrote: post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

> IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada, China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely getting in. What are Australia and Canada doing in there? Australia has… Atlassian? Besides that, I’ve only heard of developers in Aus/Canada/Japan being well paid if they work for US companies like Google or are parked there…

> Australia is a petrostate pretending to be a service economy

Come now, it’s more of an iron ore or coal state than an oil one. Beef is more of their exports.

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/aus

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#75

Post by orangepurple »

i80and wrote: post #60
orangepurple wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Dacia cars fit the bill and they use modern Renault drivetrains under license. Funnily they get poor safety ratings because they don't include many electronic driving aids (lol) Their structural safety is great.

Calling their structural safety great seems like an overstatement -- I can't find a Dacia model on EuroNCAP that doesn't have sketchy dummy kinematics, and one new model (Spring) performs startlingly poorly in crash tests The best appears to be the 2021 Dacia Logan[1] which has a crash test littered with "marginals": > [...] structures in the dashboard presented a risk of injury to occupants of different sizes and to…

That's fair. It's still a massive improvement over the cars built before 2000 which would decapitate you with the steering column from a fender bender.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#76

Post by astrange »

gumby wrote: post #72
astrange wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada, China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely getting in. What are Australia and Canada doing in there? Australia has… Atlassian? Besides that, I’ve only heard of developers in Aus/Canada/Japan being well paid if they work for US companies like Google or are parked there…

pedalpete responded about Australia and Canada. Japan considers programming a blue collar task so pays accordingly (though there are exceptions, like Sony Computer Entertainment). But culturally the companies tend to understand the role of software better and have for a while. Remember how great the Keitei were in the late 90s/early 2000s compared to anywhere else in the world?

The kind of software in keitai (feature phones), car ECUs, and video games is different from the rest of the software industry. They’re good at making gadgets with embedded software and nothing else. In particular, nothing ever gets reused and nothing is ever made more abstract or flexible - that’s why most of the products can’t be exported and the iPhone killed all the Galapagos phones.

There are a lot of interesting lessons in video games though; it’s the only kind of software people love using enough to write emulators for, and game developers seem to exist in a lot more countries than other software businesses do.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#77

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

barbazoo wrote: post #68
gumby wrote: post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

Pay aside, I wonder if the German automotive industry is just a particularly bad example. I've worked in Germany, Switzerland, Canada and now for an American company and I found that software companies aren't not that much different. I've also worked for an automotive supplier in Germany and can understand where parent is coming from.

Software companies have vastly lower overhead. Their staffing and cost structure is completely different from a manufacturer. SV tech bros getting $200K+RSU starting salaries can't be replicated by other businesses.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#78

Post by kareemsabri »

pedalpete wrote: post #66
astrange wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO the only countries that really understand software at both a technical and business value add level are US, AUS, Canada, China, with India less so but in that group and Japan just barely getting in. What are Australia and Canada doing in there? Australia has… Atlassian? Besides that, I’ve only heard of developers in Aus/Canada/Japan being well paid if they work for US companies like Google or are parked there…

I'm a Canadian living in Australia. Australia has much more than just Atlassian. Canva is the 9th most valuable private company according to crunchbase [1]. But you need to look deeper than just "who has the biggest most successful companies. Note, the comment says "countries that understand software". From what I've seen, and one of the reasons I moved here, Australia values quality production. They understand where…

Canada has started to be competitive, mostly because of US companies coming in and bidding up wages, but when I left (~10 years ago) a top salary for a SWE was about $80k. I'm not sure it's because of some cultural appreciation of software as a value driver versus a cost center. The (self-proclaimed) branding as "Silicon Valley North" seems a bit excessive.

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#79

Post by andsoitis »

sgjohnson wrote: post #64
geodel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why and how. There is no point is arguing "low" European salaries unless someone shows European companies are more profitable and they save a nice chunk of money by paying less to S/w engineers. Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good qu…

> Not very familiar with Australia. But thinking that high paying company like Atlassian which produces a very crappy software which I unfortunately deal daily. To me it shows high pay does not guarantee good quality software which many(not you) seems to be arguing here. That's a different problem. That's because you, the user, are not a customer of Atlassian. Companies and their micromanagers, however, love JIRA. Mi…

> Microsoft is in the same boat. Virtually no users of their products are actually their customers. That's how you get away with producing very crappy software, even if you hire the top talent.

Such a weird logic. You’re saying that Microsoft produces crappy software even though they hire too talent. And they get away with it because the people who buy it don’t use it (i.e. by extension don’t care if they’re spending their money wisely)?

Re: Porsche boss faces software woes keeping VW a step behind Tesla

#80

Post by rad_gruchalski »

lacker wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #15

I've been following this debacle in the German press and I think there's a structural problem that they will struggle to dig their way out of. And by "they" I don't mean just VW, but much of European industry. Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important Let's start with cars. Back before cars were just comput…

Software is simply not valued in Europe, and not because there aren't amazing developers there -- there are many. But software isn't considered important In many ways this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. An organization thinks software engineers aren't very important. And it doesn't pay the sort of salaries you need to get the top talent. So it doesn't have any top-tier software engineers, and their software team stru…

> In many ways this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. An organization thinks software engineers aren't very important. And it doesn't pay the sort of salaries you need to get the top talent. So it doesn't have any top-tier software engineers, and their software team struggles to deliver valuable projects.

And you can see this in their hiring. All full of interns. I remember when VW was advertising a “software school”. They were bragging about teaching dozens of “software engineers”.

The people who run these businesses think that writing software is like being a mechanic. That there’s some “end state” in software. These companies have no software culture. All that matters to them, and especially in Germany, is phds. They don’t care about software, they care that they employ a high number of phds.

Funny story. I remember attending an event at Telekom some years back. People from Fraunhofer ISST were on the panel discussing how to bring quality to a major European software initiative that is currently often on the news. Another point was to come up with an idea how to run an org that can maintain said sovereign platform in a transparent manner.

I asked them a question: why not to hand it over to the universities? Why not set up a number of working groups and use it as a platform to teach competent people on a real world, high profile system. You know: r&d, devops, monitoring, service, bug fixing, new features. Sounds like a great opportunity to teach future software generations, no?

You know what was the reaction of the ceo of Fraunhofer, the said man who was running that panel? He laughed and replied: “do you know how bad German universities are?” He said that in public in front of dozens of attendees. I was left speechless.

So if add 2 and 2, you understand what is happening. Everybody is happy with the status quo.

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