BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time • Hacker News Board

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#171

Post by pocksuppet » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

servo_sausage wrote: post #147

umpalumpaaa wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found German unions pretty good. I mean the union is correct in this case. Robots will replace jobs. A union’s job is to make sure there are jobs for people in the company they are already in. Usually unions would speak the truth (“robots = jobs go away”) but pair this with some suggestions: eg trying to upskill the affected worker so that they can be moved to a different department). While I was working in…

Fundamentally the union should be getting the workers a fair deal for their labour (conditions and wages); once the union starts interfering with the technical aspects or blocking labour saving investment it quickly sours the whole arrangement.

It's not even about blocking investment, they just want to make sure the employees still have jobs. You can invest if you find something else to do with the employee.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#172

Post by RGamma » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #118

pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

>how cheap / penny pinching his German companies and their employees were when doing deals I think most people(Americans mostly) don't have the faintest idea how true that is right now. Here's a comment of mine from a few weeks ago giving such a present-day example that will blow your brains of how cheap german companies are. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47018023 I feel like German companies know they lost th…

~46M employed (of which ~16M part time, usually related to child or elder care), ~84M total population, ~22M pensioners, avg age ~47, lots of SMEs, little natural resources. It's part of necessary consolidation. Considering all that, we're doing quite well...

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#173

Post by OKRainbowKid » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #141

pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

I don't know if it's sheer stubbornness or they're just wired differently. As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore. They just want to keep the system running until retirement. There is no long-…

That's my impression as well. The future is being sold for the present.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#174

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:28 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #167

marceldegraaf wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently replaced the shock dampers on our Miele washing machine (~10 years old) and I was amazed how well designed and ergonomic the inside of the machine is. Parts are very easy to get at, all screws are Torx of identical size, and there's one very obvious way to take the machine apart and put it back together again. Made the replacement a breeze.

I think the whole premise of judging a whole country on some random product a company from that country made is rediculous. It's like saying Americans can't develop software because Microsoft screwed up Windows in the last few versions.

Indeed, the parent phrase " German engineering ... their vacuum cleaners" struck me as a bit ridiculous. Perhaps there is a design standard for a company and "their" products, but this was too sweeping.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#175

Post by samiv » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

In many cases in Germany "digitalization" means there's a PDF which you can download, print, fill out sign and scan and send copy of.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#176

Post by stephencanon » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

pcurve wrote: post #100

wenc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

Our (~2015) 3-series controls are just about perfect. Where they differ from Honda/Toyota's controls that I am also very familiar with, they're noticeably better now that I'm familiar with them. Everything is really well thought-out.

Of course, now they (and almost every other manufacturer) have followed Tesla off the cliff and made everything a screen, so the current generation cars have abysmal controls.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#177

Post by shafyy » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #141

pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

I don't know if it's sheer stubbornness or they're just wired differently. As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore. They just want to keep the system running until retirement. There is no long-…

You are right about the issue, but wrong about the action. There are things you can do. Vote for candidates and parties that genuinely want a different future. Become politically active yourself. Run for office. Work with your local community. Every bit of action helps.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#178

Post by stephencanon » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

tirant wrote: post #132

pcurve wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed. IMHO, last good BMWs were E90 and F10s. That's when they still cared about craftsmanship even in areas not visible to customers.

I strongly disagree. The step from the F series to the G vehicles was big, quality improved a lot, specially for the 3 series (F30, F31 vs G20, G21) and the X3 (the G01 feels like a 5 series). The materials, assembly, noises during driving, but specially the driving dynamics and robustness are incredibly high. It’s also true though that the last wave of G models has improved driving dynamics but cheapened out in inte…

Mechanically, you're probably right, but the screen-centric controls of the newer generation are _awful_ by comparison to the F generation's physical buttons and dials (this isn't BMW though, it's the whole industry).

My wife and I both have F31s, which we will drive until we can no longer source replacement parts unless the industry comes to its senses first (unlikely). Any time we've ever looked at plausible replacements, the screen-based controls are an immediate hard no.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#179

Post by cucumber3732842 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #141

pcurve wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

I don't know if it's sheer stubbornness or they're just wired differently. As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore. They just want to keep the system running until retirement. There is no long-…

>As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore

However bad Germany is in this regard, I suspect the US is far worse. There is no cohort in the US who remembers living in "East US" to temper the excesses of the people who've only known ease and comfort (though of course those people will tell you they worked hard to <insert career/prosperity path that no longer exists).

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#180

Post by samiv » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 1:38 PM UTC

wenc wrote: post #63

Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

As a non German but someone who has lived there for 10 years my take is that its cultural part of being Germans. They always seem to gravitate towards making things just a little bit more difficult.

Sthe keyboards are not QWERTY. They're QWERTZ.

Traffic lights are in excessive combinations of green/yellow/red. Sometimes you might have yellow/red light sometimes only red.

Roads often have "end of speed limit" sign. But the speed limit might have been temporary for construction. So now you have to remember the original speed limit. Why not post the actual speed limit again?

Stuff like this is absolutely everywhere in the German society for apparently no reason.

EDIT: Adding the best for last.. in Germany when you have an IBAN bank account (you know the I stands for international) you must have German international bank account, or else it will be rejected by everyone and everything.