Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#21

Post by _the_inflator » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 8:54 AM UTC

FullyFunctional wrote: post #18

clouddrover wrote: post #3

Perfect storms aside, I think Volkswagen will be the biggest producer of EVs within 3 years. They're targeting the high end with the Porsche Taycan, the Porsche Macan EV, and the future Audi e-tron GT which will be based on the Taycan's platform: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-double-taycan-ev-... https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-macan-electric-on... Volkswagen's MEB platform targets mid-range v…

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)

Exactly. This is what makes Tesla so unique. It is not only about the cars it is also about the power supply - and don't forget Tesla's solar roof so that you can charge your car at home almost for free.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#22

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 8:58 AM UTC

_the_inflator wrote: post #21

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)

Exactly. This is what makes Tesla so unique. It is not only about the cars it is also about the power supply - and don't forget Tesla's solar roof so that you can charge your car at home almost for free.

If you live in a place with net metering, once you've committed to buying a solar roof (Tesla or otherwise), using it to charge an electric car (Tesla or otherwise) has almost the exact same marginal cost as it would without having the roof. (The only difference is the imperceptible increase in electricity supply, and thus similarly miniscule decrease in cost, from your roof being connected to the grid.)

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#23

Post by etaerc » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:00 AM UTC

ahartmetz wrote: post #10

l4u532 wrote: post #8

As a German, I am quite happy about this. What you must know is that German organisations are extremely hierarchical, with little information flowing from frontline management to to top management. Hence, change only happens top down and only if the top managers in their ivory towers deem it necessary. But it’s incredibly important that our automakers reinvent themselves. And here we have the necessary angst to drive…

Not all German organizations are like that. The car industry is especially dysfunctional. I've been watching them fail at software for years now. The problem, as far as I can tell, is as follows: top management is able and motivated to increase the size of the money bag. Developers just want to do a good job for a good salary. Middle management can't change the size of the money bag too much, so it just wants to grab…

> If good software is produced in Germany

It is not. I worked in 3 people startups, 15 people web shops, 50 people IoT shops, and very very big enterprise software corps in Germany and I can tell you what you say can be copy&pasted into any of them. The only advantage of smaller companies is that they can't afford to have as much middle management. Therefore the "visionaries" are forced to live closer to reality and work with small teams. But they certainly don't like it and move to your model as soon as possible.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#24

Post by _the_inflator » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

l4u532 wrote: post #8

As a German, I am quite happy about this. What you must know is that German organisations are extremely hierarchical, with little information flowing from frontline management to to top management. Hence, change only happens top down and only if the top managers in their ivory towers deem it necessary. But it’s incredibly important that our automakers reinvent themselves. And here we have the necessary angst to drive…

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 Germany establish besides ABS? The cars still drive forward, backwards and can turn around - AWESOME! This has been done for almost 100 years.

Germany's car makers are great at marketing. "Drive a M5 and feel the power of 500+ horsepower on the Autobahn" - that's exactly why they are struggling with the idea of autonomous driving: how can you reinvent the story from being an Autobahn race car driver to calmness in your car with millions of other people? Same goes for Porsche: "Reinventing the classic" It still has enough HP to accelerate you from 0 to 100 km/h in roughly 4,2 seconds - and then comes Tesla and beats the sh*t out of Porsche without even hard work.

Germany's car industry is like the National Rifle Association. They won't change without hard disruption. And in Germany it finally arrived.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#25

Post by sonnyblarney » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:07 AM UTC

VW is trying to reconstitutes their entire fleet onto a 'single platform' or at least something resembling that. This is a core part of their long term strategy that's oft not talked about [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MLB_platform

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#26

Post by Bouncingsoul1 » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

FullyFunctional wrote: post #18

clouddrover wrote: post #3

Perfect storms aside, I think Volkswagen will be the biggest producer of EVs within 3 years. They're targeting the high end with the Porsche Taycan, the Porsche Macan EV, and the future Audi e-tron GT which will be based on the Taycan's platform: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-double-taycan-ev-... https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-macan-electric-on... Volkswagen's MEB platform targets mid-range v…

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

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#27

Post by mpweiher » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:14 AM UTC

etaerc wrote: post #23

ahartmetz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all German organizations are like that. The car industry is especially dysfunctional. I've been watching them fail at software for years now. The problem, as far as I can tell, is as follows: top management is able and motivated to increase the size of the money bag. Developers just want to do a good job for a good salary. Middle management can't change the size of the money bag too much, so it just wants to grab…

> If good software is produced in Germany It is not. I worked in 3 people startups, 15 people web shops, 50 people IoT shops, and very very big enterprise software corps in Germany and I can tell you what you say can be copy&pasted into any of them. The only advantage of smaller companies is that they can't afford to have as much middle management. Therefore the "visionaries" are forced to live closer to reality and…

I think we actually did a pretty good job at 6wunderkinder with wunderlist.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#28

Post by _the_inflator » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:19 AM UTC

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.

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#29

Post by clouddrover » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:21 AM UTC

FullyFunctional wrote: post #18

clouddrover wrote: post #3

Perfect storms aside, I think Volkswagen will be the biggest producer of EVs within 3 years. They're targeting the high end with the Porsche Taycan, the Porsche Macan EV, and the future Audi e-tron GT which will be based on the Taycan's platform: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-double-taycan-ev-... https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/porsche-macan-electric-on... Volkswagen's MEB platform targets mid-range v…

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)

Volkswagen owns Electrify America and Electrify Canada:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/

https://www.electrify-canada.ca/

And as another poster mentioned they co-own the Ionity network in Europe with other car manufacturers.

The Porsche Taycan can make use of 350 kW chargers for 80% charge in about 15 minutes:

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/28/porsche-taycan-owners-will...

Re: Germany's car industry faces a perfect storm

#30

Post by ahartmetz » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

etaerc wrote: post #23

ahartmetz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all German organizations are like that. The car industry is especially dysfunctional. I've been watching them fail at software for years now. The problem, as far as I can tell, is as follows: top management is able and motivated to increase the size of the money bag. Developers just want to do a good job for a good salary. Middle management can't change the size of the money bag too much, so it just wants to grab…

> If good software is produced in Germany It is not. I worked in 3 people startups, 15 people web shops, 50 people IoT shops, and very very big enterprise software corps in Germany and I can tell you what you say can be copy&pasted into any of them. The only advantage of smaller companies is that they can't afford to have as much middle management. Therefore the "visionaries" are forced to live closer to reality and…

Well, I know of at least one highly effective development company that twice erred on the side of introducing a new management layer too late because nobody particularly wanted another layer.