Mercedes Has the Horsepower for Tesla Battle • Hacker News Board

Re: Mercedes Has the Horsepower for Tesla Battle

#61

Post by vilmosi » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #2

The problem isn't that Mercedes, VW, and other big automakers don't have more horsepower in terms of dollars to spend on R&D than Tesla. To abuse the car analogy, it's a problem of momentum and power-to-weight ratios. Mercedes needs to do a complete 180 to become an electric car manufacturer. Employees with education and years of experience in internal combustion engines will fight their obsolescence. Plants and prod…

Aren't german car companies owning like half the patents of electric cars? You make it sound like tesla is the only one working in this area.

Re: Mercedes Has the Horsepower for Tesla Battle

#62

Post by Xixi » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

CrystalGamma wrote: post #44

Xixi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mercedes has a lot of help in this fight: the writing is not on the wall, it's in the law. That should be quite helpful in convincing employees to not only not fight the change, but to push for the change. At some point survival instinct kicks in. ICE cars will be banned (either already law, or being discussed) in: Norway (2025), Netherlands (2025), India (2030), Germany (maybe 2030), France (2040), China (date unkno…

As the very home country of Mercedes/Daimler, Opel, Volkswagen and other car manufacturers and the (AFAIK) only unlimited-speed public roads in the world (Autobahn), I (German citizen) pretty much doubt our government will start a serious effort to get ICE cars banned in the next 3 years. Maybe if EVs get significant traction in that timeframe, they'll propose such a law to look progressive for the next election.

Even if Germany is late to this game, it doesn't change much if enough countries ban ICE. The German auto industry will have to follow: as you probably know Mercedes (and Volkswagen, BMW, etc.) export a lot, so they simply won't have a choice. And I'm sure the numerous engineers and laborers building the cars who don't want to lose their jobs will understand it very well too...

Re: Mercedes Has the Horsepower for Tesla Battle

#63

Post by VeejayRampay » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 9:48 PM UTC

ginko wrote: post #11

VeejayRampay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, as a Frenchman, if history has taught me ANYTHING about the Germans, it's that they're generally very apt at changing course, adapting and being ahead of the curve. They have that image of not being the most flexible but when it comes to technology and industry, they're pretty damn good and I think they'll make that transition just like they've made all the necessary transitions before.

A good counter example of this is the downfall of the German camera industry in the 60s and 70s. All that's left of that is Leica, Zeiss and a bunch of brand names (Rollei, Contax, Voigtländer..) stuck on Japanese cameras.

That's called finishing the game in expert mode and getting bored :)

Re: Mercedes Has the Horsepower for Tesla Battle

#64

Post by flavio81 » Tue, Sep 12, 2017, 11:24 PM UTC

ginko wrote: post #11

VeejayRampay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, as a Frenchman, if history has taught me ANYTHING about the Germans, it's that they're generally very apt at changing course, adapting and being ahead of the curve. They have that image of not being the most flexible but when it comes to technology and industry, they're pretty damn good and I think they'll make that transition just like they've made all the necessary transitions before.

A good counter example of this is the downfall of the German camera industry in the 60s and 70s. All that's left of that is Leica, Zeiss and a bunch of brand names (Rollei, Contax, Voigtländer..) stuck on Japanese cameras.

>A good counter example of this is the downfall of the German camera industry in the 60s and 70s. All that's left of that is Leica, Zeiss and a bunch of brand names (Rollei, Contax, Voigtländer..) stuck on Japanese cameras.

Classic camera nerd here. True, true, but mostly down to:

a) the Japanese government helping optical and camera companies share technologies, instead of Germany where patent protection makes german camera companies do hard competition against each other and find all kinds of workarounds to prevent patent infrigement from the other brand.

b) REALLY bad business decisions (for example, Zeiss-Ikon-Voigtlander at some point had something like 3 or 4 incompatible different lens mounts for their 35mm camera range)

c) the Japanese making stuff cheaper because less labor costs, unions, etc

d) Also, due to WWII war reparations, Russia and Japan 'inherit' all optical patents and designs from Zeiss germany which helps them build their optical (and camera) industry as quick as possible.

e) German companies not foreseeing the japanese menace / not doing anything about it.

Great website and article about this:

http://www.klassik-cameras.de/Voigtlaender-Niedergang.html

(use Google translate)

Re: Mercedes Has the Horsepower for Tesla Battle

#65

Post by LeifCarrotson » Wed, Sep 13, 2017, 12:57 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #43

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #2

The problem isn't that Mercedes, VW, and other big automakers don't have more horsepower in terms of dollars to spend on R&D than Tesla. To abuse the car analogy, it's a problem of momentum and power-to-weight ratios. Mercedes needs to do a complete 180 to become an electric car manufacturer. Employees with education and years of experience in internal combustion engines will fight their obsolescence. Plants and prod…

For Elon Musk's sake I really hope that he's not so naive as to underestimate the competition to this extent.

I'm not suggesting that Tesla (or Musk) are underestimating the competition and taking it easy. To the contrary, I expect they're working as hard as they can.

But if it wasn't for these factors, there would be no competition, only annihilation. It's remarkable that there's competition at all. When multiple members of the competition can restructure their R&D budget on a whim to allocate more than your entire company is worth, you need systematic advantages like this to stay in business!